Snow White is a fantasy film with a charming performance by Rachel Zegler! It has just a touch of magic for young people, families, and those who are still open to wonder! The director is Marc Webb who also directed the brilliant rom com, 500 Days of Summer (2009), and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014). Erin Cressida Wilson is the screenwriter and her past credits include the thriller, The Girl on the Train (2016), It is of course based on first animated movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). The Disney film was an adaptation of the fairy tale published in 1812 by The Brothers Grimm in Grimms’ Fairy Tales.
We have a narrator (Andrew Barth Feldman) telling the story of Snow White and we see the white book of the fairy tale. Feldman was in Ratatouille: The Tik Tok Musical (2021) and also played Antoine in the series, High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (2021-2023). There is a hedgehog on the cover, a little sleepy or it is Sleepy?, wakened by a squirrel, and then some bunnies. We have a king (Hadley Fraser) and queen (Lorena Andrea). Fraser was in Les Misérables (2012) and he also performed on stage for the musical. Andrea was Ariel’s sister, Perla, in The Little Mermaid (2023). There is a winter storm and their daughter is born in carriage in the middle of the snow storm. Snow White gets her name from that cold winter. A nice touch.
In the kingdom, there is songs as the people go about gathering apples for pies, I like the introduction of apples into the beginning. This includes young Snow White (Emilia Faucher) with the song, “Good Things Grow.” Faucher played Misha in the comedy drama, CODA (2021). The catchy, uplifting new songs are by the song team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. The duo has written the music and lyrics for the musical, Dear Evan Hansen (2015) and also the songs for the musical, The Greatest Showman (2017). It becomes a swirl of color with dancing in the courtyard. Impressive choreography by Mandy Moore, who worked on La La Land (2016) and also costumes by Sandy Powell, the costume designer for Cinderella (2015).
Snow White sees that there is a shy girl peeking out from a column and goes to place a garland on her. They go to a wishing well and the king tells his daughter about being “Fearless, Fair, Brave, and True”, the words that are inside of a silver locket that he gives her. It is through the perspective of the wishing well that we see the queen disappear, the narrator says that she was ill and had died. Then, through the castle entrance comes a woman (Gal Gadot) in a black dress, Gadot is known for the lead role in Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) and voiced Shank singing a song in Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018). It is unusual that one of the movie’s themes is about knowing a person, but we don’t get the names of the Good King and Queen nor the Evil Queen. She only cares about her beauty and consults with the Magic Mirror (voiced by Patrick Page). Pike Phillips for the movie musical, In the Heights (2021) was played by Page.
He declares her “the fairest one of them all.” The other question is her origin, a princess for an unknown country?, what happened before she arrived at this kingdom? The queen says that there is a threat from the Southern Kingdom. The king is about to ride with his men to deal with it, but first places a silver locket on Snow White with the "Fearless, Fair, Brave, and True" words engraved inside the locket. We are told that the king has died after he left the kingdom. The Evil Queen becomes cruel and has turned “farmers into soldiers.” She doesn’t see Snow White as a problem as long as she is the “fairest one.” We see Snow White mopping the castle floor and this resolves to the adult Snow White (Rachel Zegler). Maria was notably played by Zegler in West Side Story (2021). She starred as Lucy Gray Vaird in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023). The narrator says, "she nearly forgot herself."
Snow White’s attention turns to noise in the kitchen, a young man (Anthony Burnap) is in the kitchen putting a potato into a sack. Burnap starred in the drama mini-series, Under the Banner of Heaven (2022). He also starred in the play, The Inheritence, winning the Tony Award in 2020. His character, Jonathan, is similiar to Flynn in Tangled (2010), a roguish man with ideals and not a prince. Jonathan tells her, “Snow White hasn’t been seen”, which is why everyone has lost hope. He slips away, but is caught by the queen’s guards. The queen orders the guards to bind him to the gate as punishment. Later, Snow White goes to see the queen at her table while she snaps lobster legs. She asks for kindness to the people with Jonathan’s release. They go to a mirrored wall and the queen shows her a rose that she says is like kindness and the rose withers away. Snow White leaves and goes to the well singing “Waiting on a Wish”, a powerful “I want” song.
Five Wishes out of Five!
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