Snow White Review: I've Fallen For Rachel Zegler’s Adorable, Good-Natured And Surprisingly Romantic Snow White

It’s safe to say that 1937’s Snow White And The Seven Dwarves started it all for Disney. The studio’s first full-length feature was the dawn of an era to which the House of Mouse still holds tight 88 years later – both in its animated movies and with now six actresses across the past decade portraying Disney Princesses in live-action remakes. But now that Snow White is the latest to be retold, I know you’re curious to ask the mirror, mirror on the wall, where does Rachel Zegler’s Snow White stand among the fairest of them all?

I was a huge fan of Disney Princess movies growing up, but Snow White wasn’t a title I exhausted on VHS like the others. As such, I’m surprised to say the remake swept me off my feet with the kind of wholesome escapism that reminds me why fairytales should and are revisited generation after generation – with this one succeeding especially thanks to Rachel Zegler's casting.

The movie – helmed by (500) Days Of Summer and The Amazing Spider-Man director Marc Webb from a screenplay written by The Girl On The Train’s Erin Cressida Wilson – is yes, yet another product of Disney’s successful run of making live-action blockbusters out of their animated gems. However, it feels like the filmmakers registered fans complaints about past remakes this time around and weren't too precious about the source material to the point of creating a straight-up imitation. The film offers an entertaining mash up of tribute and a new and (mostly) satisfying musical that builds upon Snow White’s Disney legacy for the better.

There’s been a lot of nearly carbon-copy Disney remakes, but Snow White finds a solid reason to revisit the studio’s first feature-length classic.

The Disney movie starts with an adorable sleeping CGI hedgehog laying over a storybook to “aww” at before the book opens and the Snow White's narrative starts off with the origins of her name. The princess starts with a happy life, both her parents providing her an encouraging and joyous upbringing, and the original soundtrack from La La Land and The Greatest Showman songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul’s begins with the heartwarming “Good Things Grow.” But as the princess cliché sadly goes, Snow is left under the supervision of her evil stepmother (Gal Gadot) as she grows up.

As the movie fast forwards in time to Rachel Zegler’s Snow, the iconic character doesn’t belt over a well, “I'm wishing for the one I love to find me;” she instead powerfully laments through another new tune “I’m Waiting On A Wish” about her hopes to “become my father’s daughter.” The princess remains feminine and soft in this iteration, but her characterization realistically reflects how a young woman might feel in moments to herself in the face of feeling alone, abandoned and powerless by her circumstances.

While other versions of not only Snow White but modern iterations of stories involving heroines have turned their leading ladies into action heroes or “I don’t need a man" types, Snow White does a solid job of updating her for modern audiences while also staying true to who the character is from her panicked venture into the dark forest to true love’s kiss. And as her origins dictate, Snow White’s defining trait is the purity and kindness she represents to all with whom she meets eyes. Being “nice” as her most key trait could have easily come off as ingenuine, but Zegler grounds Snow White with a humble and gentle nature that ultimately helps deliver a sweet and classic “good conquers all” message to audiences.

Snow is not waiting on a prince to save her, because she doesn’t have one. Instead, early in the film she meets a thief named Jonathan (Andrew Burnap), who looks just like Snow White’s love interest in the original film and takes on a mix between a lowly Robin Hood and Tangled’s Flynn Rider in place of a classic prince. Their chemistry is fluttery and fun, and remains the heart of the movie throughout. It's perhaps one of the biggest surprises of the film.

The seven dwarves on the other hand, are cute, and yes, a tad creepy in their character design, which clearly draws from the original animation rather than going for realism, but they are somewhat sidelined to round out Snow White’s relationship with Jonathan and the Evil Queen. The character of Dopey is given the most attention and care, and his arc is rather adorable.

The music in Snow White is mostly a winner, thanks to Rachel Zegler’s infectious charm.

Rather than Snow White trying to be too much at once (something I feel recent princess movies like Frozen 2, Raya and the Last Dragon and Moana 2 have been victim of), Snow White is simply a fairytale and a musical. In terms of material from the original soundtrack, don’t expect to hear most of the songs from the original like “With A Smile And A Song” or “Someday My Prince Will Come.” The production holds on to just two from the classic – “Whistle While You Work” and “Heigh-Ho” – while offering five new songs (and a ton of reprises) to carve out its own experience from the original.

After leaving the movie, I chiefly had Snow White’s new “I want” song “Waiting On A Wish” along with the old beloved tunes stuck in my head, with a couple of new favorites to go home and revisit. Both of my new favorites have to do with Snow White’s romance plotline between Zegler’s Snow and Andrew Burnap’s Jonathan. In one funny tune, “Princess Problems,” Jonathan hilariously calls out Snow for her naivety, whilst “A Hand Meets A Hand,” which was beautifully co-written by Lizzy McAlpine, heightens their connection with a love song also reminiscent of Tangled, by way of “I See The Light”.

While Gal Gadot is at times delicious as the Evil Queen, it’s an overall uneven performance, and her song “All Is Fair” is the most easily skippable and most tonally off moment of the whole movie. Gadot is treading a dangerous line between playing one of the most terrifying villains in Disney history and trying to be “fun evil” for the kiddies. Thanks in part to the stunning costuming by Sandy Powell (who also did 2015’s Cinderella), it’s absolutely impossible to look away from Gadot’s vicious Evil Queen, but I wonder how the performance might have hit harder from a trained singer to match Zegler’s syrupy and Broadway-ready pipes.

Marc Webb directs a sunny live-action remake that works as a tribute, but it also has a stiffness to it.

Disney remakes have been criticized in the past for being visually a lot more dark and brooding than their originals, but Marc Webb’s Snow White has a bright, airy quality to its visual design that is most welcome. The production is clearly heavy on computer graphics, especially when it comes to the characters with whom Snow interacts – like the dwarves and woodland animals. The visual choices are at an uphill battle following the artistry of the classic, and the dwarves’ design is not as horrible as some might have thought (but will likely take you out of the escape upon the first few looks), but I will say the CGI animals are an absolute delight and are gorgeously created by the production’s visual effects teams.

Marc Webb and his crew do a solid job of playing tribute to the many famous shots from the iconic original (such as through Snow White’s fall after the apple bite), but there are some tonal problems when it comes to the live-action musical portion that does end up being rather formulaic. For example, some of the music numbers feel very staged and Broadway-like, while the rest of the movie doesn’t necessarily match this. As a result, the film can feel like it’s going through the motions of scene to song rather than organically moving through its narrative.

Early in this Snow White, Gal Gadot’s Evil Queen comments something to the likes of “I don’t remember you being this opinionated,” and that about sums it up when it comes to Disney’s retelling. But, for the purists out there, all the beats from the original story is very much intact: Snow White just has more to do this time around and more agency to explore. I know I’m not alone in getting frustrated with the studio for making their big releases retreads of old material, but I was surprised that in the case of Snow White, I found it to be the Disney remake I didn’t know I wanted. While this apple isn't without some bruises here and there, it's overall a welcome update for the classic for a new generation of Disney lovers.