The list of controversies and complaints preceding the release of Disney’s live-action Snow White remake reads a bit like the poster for Saturday Night: The lead is too outspoken, the villain is controversial, the dwarfs are problematic, the songs are by Pasek and Paul, the prince isn’t in the movie?, they have 110 minutes to remake a beloved animated classic — what could go wrong? A lot, as it turns out, as Marc Webb’s adaptation of the 1937 animated classic spent most of its four-year lead-up dogged by social-media outcry, much of which was pinned to its star, Rachel Zegler. First, people took issue with her heritage, because Snow White (a fictional character) is “canonically” white; then, she took flak for talking about the dated nature of the original film; and late last year, she apologized for anti-Trump statements she made on her Instagram. A rival studio executive told Vulture, “The reality is Rachel Zegler should not be playing Snow White.”
Disney refused to stand by its leading lady in the run-up to the film’s release. It had multiple opportunities to defend Zegler against trolls who took issue with her casting, for racist reasons or otherwise, but did not. And her apology to Trump voters reeked of corporate cajoling. That’s a shame because what’s immediately apparent while watching Snow White is that Zegler is the only part of the movie that actually works. We’ve long known she can really sing (in West Side Story, sure, but have you seen her do “Gimme Gimme”? ) and she’s more than capable of carrying a movie (see: 2023’s Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes), but Snow White feels like the first Zegler vehicle that runs purely on her charm and skill. Her Snow White feels like a self-aware heroine in conversation with the Disney-princess mythos, far more skeptical than swooning, as well as gentle enough to appeal to children. (Like a presidential candidate, Zegler has turned much of her press tour into an exercise in baby-holding.) She has that princess-y spark that’s so necessary to these movies, and puts the “action” in live action: always looking, listening, responding to the environment around her. Zegler may not be the first person to pretend to pet a big-eyed deer on the head, but she might be the most convincing.
It helps, of course, that Zegler can truly sing. Like the animated Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ Adriana Caselotti, Zegler is a soprano, and though most of the songs in the remake are pitched down to an alto range, she pushes through the stomp-clap Pasek and Paul of it all with plenty of gusto and commitment, moving easily through spaces filled with nothing. Her rendition of “Whistle While You Work” may be the movie’s big showstopper, a lively dance sequence in which Zegler is the only thing that feels alive. She moves and twirls as though this really is a lot of fun, and for a few minutes, all the baggage this movie carries with it washes away. There’s a dedicated earnestness to her approach to Snow White — she moves not as if she believes Snow White is “real” but as if she knows who is watching the movie (children, mostly) and what they want to get out of it (a nice time).
The fate of the film in the greater Disney-live-action-remake swamp is yet to be determined, with box office tracking on the lower side. Right now it stands as an artifact, mostly, of ideas that probably felt wiser many years ago, the whole thing now burdened by bizarre politics and overstuffed lore. Almost nothing about the movie feels like a genuine choice as opposed to a R&D-tested average. In turn, the movie is full of contradictions: The dwarfs look horrible but sound good; Gal Gadot’s Evil Queen is the best styled presence onscreen but can neither sing nor dance (nor act?). In lieu of a Prince Charming, the love interest, is just a guy named Jonathan (Andrew Burnap) who advocates for Snow White to fight for herself … but also winds up saving her at the end of the day.
Amid the mess, Zegler emerges as the singular force who summons actual magic in her performance, and is perhaps the only person who ought to come out of all this unscathed (except for Andrew Barth Feldman who “voices” Dopey — he’s fine). She charms, she belts, she gives it her all and has gotten very little in return. That the actor has yet to sign on to any new big-screen projects is not a huge surprise after the year she’s had, but that doesn’t mean Zegler is going away. She spent the fall on Broadway in Romeo + Juliet and will soon go to the West End to play the titular role in Evita. Claims that Disney made a mistake in casting her are true, just not that the studio executives intended it. Zegler is a star worth nurturing, not neglecting, and Snow White is all the better because of her sparkle.
More on Snow White
- A Timeline of ‘Snow White’ and Its Many Controversies
- Some Lingering Questions About Snow White’s Bizarre New Lore
- The Horrifying Dwarfs in Snow White Are a Cautionary Tale