To be fair—and fair is a word of double importance in Disney’s live-action remake of its first animated feature—a 2025 version of “Snow White” is as thorny as those wildly gnarled trees that keep grabbing Snow White (Rachel Zegler) when she’s trying to run away from the huntsman ordered to kill her. The Grimm brothers’ story was written more than 200 years ago. The Disney movie came out almost 90 years ago, in 1937. Even those who do not consider themselves especially “woke” might be troubled by a heroine who waits to be rescued, singing “Some Day My Prince Will Come” as she gazes into the wishing well, merrily keeps house for seven dwarfs, with a mute one named Dopey, and is awakened by a non-consensual kiss from a prince she has never seen. But there is still enormous affection for the original film, and audiences will want its essential elements re-created.
One way this version tries to thread that needle is in that word: “fair.” “Who is the fairest of them all?” is a core element of the original folk tale and every version ever since, including the gorgeously designed “Mirror Mirror” directed by Tarsem Singh, starring Lily Collins and the cheeky Amanda Bynes updating in a contemporary college setting, “Sydney White,” both worth watching. In this version, the question has more nuance because the young Snow White (Emilia Faucher) is taught by her parents, the kind king and queen, that she must learn to be fearless, brave, true, and…fair, so important that they are engraved on her silver necklace. There is so much emphasis on the noblesse oblige duty to support and bake apple pies for the villagers that we can expect some acidic commentary from certain news outlets.
The other core elements of any version of this story are all present here, with varying degrees of success. Near the top is replicating Disney’s version of the iconic magic mirror that answers the question about fairness (the mirror for “Sydney White’s” nemesis is the online campus popularity poll). This one is close to the 1937 film’s design, familiar to Disney fans through many appearances in various productions, from the “Wonderful World of Disney” series of the 1950s, when it was voiced by Hans Conried, through the popular “Descendents: Wicked World” series of 2015-17. Here, Shakespearean actor Patrick Page brings just the right stentorian vocal thunder to his answers. The evil queen’s transformation into the hag with the poisoned apple is done with all the magic we expect from Disney as is the production design, carrying over some of gorgeously imagined details of the “nine old men” behind the 1937 animated feature.
Likely in response to criticisms of the condescending portrayal of the dwarfs in the original film, this version chose to bypass casting humans and go with CGI. Their design is not as expressive as the animated versions and their contributions to the story are not as meaningful, with a slapstick sequence that goes on too long. Dopey looks much younger than his old, bearded housemates. He looks like Mad Magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman and it is not much better than the original’s unfortunate depiction of a mute as being simple-minded. In this version, he has a gentle, childlike quality. He does not speak only because he is afraid. Of what? Who knows? The resolution will strike many as insensitively ableist. Does he really need to be fixed? It is a nice touch to have Snow White tell the dwarfs to clean up their mess instead of doing it for them. The dwarf mining business makes no sense. They dig up gems, but what do they do with them? If I’m asking myself that question, the movie is failing to immerse me fully in its world.
Instead of a prince who appears only to awaken the princess, we have Jonathan (a captivating Andrew Burnhap), an “erstwhile actor” who lives in a “liminal space where actions and motives are not well defined” (the screenplay by playwright Erin Cressida Wilson has a lot of fun throwing big words around). That liminal space is basically Robin Hood territory, in the woods, where he and an encouragingly diverse band of rebels steal from the rich and are true to the king. It is Snow White who initially rescues him, when he is caught stealing food from the castle, a good start to a developing relationship of mutual support.
Zegler does her best to straddle the old and new versions of Snow White, wearing the iconic dress with the turned-up collar, yellow skirt, and blue bodice, showing some spirit and singing sweetly. As soon as she was cast, there was online chatter along the same lines of the objections to Halle Bailey as Ariel in “The Little Mermaid.” Zegler’s parents are Polish and Colombian. The movie handles this deftly by explaining that she was not named for the paleness of her skin but for the snowstorm the night she was born.
Gal Gadot plays the evil enchantress queen. Her singing voice is thin and so is her performance, especially when she is called upon to show fury because her stepdaughter challenges her authority. The movie does not give her a lot to work with beyond the impressive costumes and special effects. Her signature magic trick is turning a flower into dust and her big number, “All is Fair,” is the weakest in a second tier set of songs from EGOT awardees Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. It is not up to their gorgeous “La La Land” songs or the wonderfully clever “Which of The Pickwick Triplets Did It?” from “Only Murders in the Building.” And it is not a personality-revealing banger like the all-time best Disney villain song from “The Little Mermaid,” “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken. We get some snippets of some of the original film’s classic numbers, “Whistle While You Work,” and the yodeling “Silly Song,” and a full-on “Hi-Ho,” which are more memorable than the new additions, possibly excepting “Princess Problems,” a nice duet between Snow White and Jonathan that sets up their differences in outlook, her empathy against the superficial cynicism he will soon happily jettison.
Some parts of the film work better than others, but none of it has the sweetness and imagination of the animated feature. This “Snow White” is not the fairest of them all. It’s just, well, fair.
