The Best Lines About Disney’s Snow White

We’ve written about this one several times but now that the reviews are flowing I wanted to highlight some of the best lines summarizing what Disney has wrought with this remake of Snow White.

To start with, the reviews aren’t good. This is currently at 45% among reviewers which suggests this never really had a chance of being something people wanted to see. Let’s just start with the top critics. One of the problems many reviewers mention is the look of the dwarves. Here’s how the Globe and Mail review put it:

Grumpy, Doc, Sleepy, Dopey – they’re all highly unnerving spoonfuls of nightmare fuel, their dead-eyed compositions resting somewhere deep inside the uncanny valley of CGI artifice.

The new film ditches some of the classic songs and changes up some of the ones that remain. The Austin Chronicle wasn’t impressed.

Which is more astounding? That Disney let Pasek and Paul, the team behind the widely loathed Dear Evan Hansen, write more songs? Or that even they could somehow massacre seemingly indestructible classics like “Heigh-Ho” and “Whistle While You Work” with terrible new arrangements and asinine new lyrics?

And then of course there’s the politics which clearly pervade this remake or reimagining. Here’s a paragraph from the Wall Street Journal:

The songs “I’m Wishing” and “Someday My Prince Will Come” have been cut; the big what-she-wants number near the outset is called “Waiting on a Wish.” Instead of longing for true love (=fairy tale), Snow White hopes to sharpen her leadership skills (=M.B.A. program). And she keeps talking about a more equitable distribution of wealth in the kingdom she is destined to rule…

You can’t have Snow White wishing for a prince anymore so they just replaced the prince with a Robin Hood character. She’s now basically AOC leading a more militant version of Occupy Wall Street. From the LA Times‘ review.

“Things are looking bleak,” Jonathan belts in a duet that pits his selfishness against her do-gooderism over a militaristic drumbeat. That number dances right on the line of how much inequality talk this tonally insecure remake can take — especially when its modern money concerns clash with its callbacks to Walt’s beloved whimsy. By the time Snow White mulls an uprising to redistribute the kingdom’s wealth, I found myself dwelling on an earlier scene in which the dwarfs splash around in a jewel cave like a glittering ball pit. Wouldn’t a few diamonds in Dopey’s pockets solve everything?

Another take from Vulture:

It’s a tale as old as time — a sheltered Ivy League girl meets a rakish dirtbag leftist who lives with a bunch of roommates and who radicalizes her by negging her about her privilege. What’s left for a girl to do but attempt some coalition building among a ragtag crew…

The Times of London review is brutal when it comes to Disney’s politics-first approach:

this Snow White, cooked up by The Amazing Spider-Man director Marc Webb and umpteen screenwriters (including Greta Gerwig and Jez Butterworth) through a near decade’s development, emerges as the epitome of Disney’s Pravda-like approach to contemporary adaptation — prescriptive politics first, followed by “inspirational” messaging, followed by more politics. And drama? And story? And character? Nope. These are, it seems, decadent tools of the oppressor.

Of course that approach works for some reviewers. Enter the Washington Post:

“Snow White” feels fresh enough to pass, and it’s certainly not the disaster a lot of people seem to have hoped for. The kids and their parents will like it, and girls and boys of all ages might even welcome a Snow White who slightly more actively resists a dictatorial ruler and brings her squabbling, divided countrymen together.

The Hollywood Reporter offers a similar Trump-referencing take:

If that sounds like the standard female-empowerment template that’s almost obligatory in contemporary fairy-tale retreads, it more or less is. But the incandescent Zegler sells it with conviction and heart. And there are worse messages to be putting out into the world via family films right now than celebrating the virtues of kindness and fairness over cruel despotism.

To be fair, nearly all the reviews, even the mostly bad ones seem to think Rachel Zegler is the best thing the movie has going for it:

Rachel Zegler’s incredible vocal range, dance, and acting abilities are on full display and cannot be denied. She’s damn good in a nearly flawless lead performance. Snow White is sweet and gentle, but has to find the courage to confront the Evil Queen.

So there you have it. Not one I’m eager to see, even as a rental. The original is one of my favorite Disney films and this sounds like a mess that doesn’t deserve the share the name.