Shaping a modern-day Snow White

By Brontë H. Lacsamana, Reporter

Movie Review
Snow White
Directed by Marc Webb

THE latest in a long line of Disney live-action remakes is Snow White, in which the 1937 animated film has been transformed for younger generations.

For this 2025 iteration of a classic Disney character, there are echoes of the original told from a modern perspective.

Snow White, as written by Erin Cressida Wilson and directed by Marc Webb, traces the titular princess’ recognizable characteristics — a lovely voice, an inner beauty, and an endearing friendship with dwarves and woodland animals. Most notable about her, and thus causing controversy among older, more purist audiences, is that her skin is not white-as-snow as the character is portrayed by Latina actress Rachel Zegler (who starred in Steven Spielberg’s 2021 remake of West Side Story).

The film opens to explain that Snow White, in this version, gets her name from having been born during a harsh winter. As with many works of fiction these days, the trend toward racial blindness is at play. The father is white, the mother is Latina, and a huntsman later on in the film is black. Other than that, the film follows the original animation where the visuals evoke a European country setting but the characters all speak with plain American accents.

The story is the same, more or less, but with added depth: Princess Snow White (Zegler) is driven away from the kingdom she was raised in by her stepmother, the Evil Queen (played by Gal Gadot). Along the way, she meets the seven dwarves and eventually a “charming prince” — in this iteration, he is the bandit Jonathan who learns to shed his cynicism to help Snow White.

The changes in the story make the film more resonant for modern audiences, and it is surprisingly decent for a live-action remake, which now have the reputation for simply being cash grabs.

Zegler is wonderful as Snow White, embodying the kind heart and caring disposition that make her an iconic princess. In contrast, Gadot is a terrible pick for the Evil Queen, as all she has to offer is her beauty (which is kind of fitting, I guess). Her villainous musical number would have been exciting if performed with the flair of an actual actress, and not the trying hard, awkward expressions and motions that Gadot does here. The dwarves, brought to life by computer-generated imagery (CGI), were weird at first, but you sort of just go with it.

An important thing to note is that the children in the cinema I was in enjoyed the movie. One girl, probably exposed to karaoke by her parents, clapped enthusiastically when Zegler hit the high notes. Another girl, perhaps much younger and more sensitive, burst into tears during a scene where the other dwarves made fun of Dopey. What was endearing was that a lot of the children came dressed as Snow White, showing that their generation is definitely not immune to the magic of Disney (or perhaps their parents influenced them well).

Speaking of Dopey, he was perhaps the dwarf served best by the CGI, his closeness to Snow White being a driving force for the audience to get behind the odd looks of the dwarves. On my part, I was disappointed by how they underused the character of Grumpy, who didn’t capture the full 180-turn he had in the original where you hated his downer behavior toward Snow White at first then loved as you saw him grow to support her. Here, the only evidence of that was him crying when she momentarily died from eating the poisoned apple.

All the music, loyal to the original, also had entertaining numbers that weren’t too painful to sit through. “Whistle While You Work” is a fun tune, and “Waiting on a Wish” is a Disney princess track that many children will likely be replaying.

The character of Jonathan (played by Andrew Burnap) is charming enough, though not a prince. It is a fitting choice, however, to give him and Snow White a few musical numbers to show their contrast of cynicism and hope, and eventually meeting in the middle as they seek to liberate the kingdom. It’s not a typical fairytale romance, but allows today’s generation of teens and young adults, more jaded and exposed to the world than the ones before, to see themselves in it.

Zegler was definitely the highlight of the entire film, embodying well the journey from idealistic girl to oppressed captive to a princess who stands with her people. While this Snow White was decent, it still is not the career gem that one would hope for her, given her great talent in singing and acting. Fingers crossed that she will star in an original story next, so that she isn’t again overshadowed by the optics of being in a remake.

Going into this expecting a Disney blockbuster, and not the endearing artistry of the original, will help in accepting it more easily. The costumes, colors, settings, and silhouettes of the characters are similar, but it’s all made new, probably more exciting for fresh eyes.

MTRCB Rating: PG