Forest Follies
Main Cast: Rachel Zegler, Gal Gadot
Director: Marc Webb
I have spent weeks and weeks in my tap studio trying to perfect an absolutely stellar beginner routine to teach to even the most uncoordinated of aspiring dancers. It’s my duty as a patriotic American and the head of DOGETTE (Department of Getting Everyone to Tap Together Eventually). My initial attempts at a public unveiling in Los Angeles did not go at all well so I knew I had to remove the triple time steps and concentrate on easier, but just as showy rudiments of the art. I called Laurie, my rehearsal pianist, and she came in and we improvised a nice rhythmic soft-shoe type arrangement of Ice Ice Baby and I came up with a simple two minute routine that anyone could learn in under an hour and look fabulous doing, especially with the adorable American flag motif dirndls and lederhosen I had Mary Gee and Kim Dee, my seamstresses, run up as prototypes. I was just preparing to book my tickets to DC to present my work to administration officials when I got a call from some under secretary of something that the DOGETTE budget was being zeroed out. Apparently someone named Bad Rabbit or some such has made the administration frown on supporting musical entertainments of any stripe and they would rather spend tax dollars on skin care, plastic surgery, and hair products for executive branch officers and that ‘frivolous programs’ including mine and the FDA were to be shut down to repurpose funds flow.
I was crushed. I called a number of my closest gal pals looking for support while I wailed and took to my bedroom with staff bringing me a freshly refilled pitcher of pineapple daiquiris every two hours. I was looking for sympathy but received mainly scorn for having even deigned to answer the call of my country. I don’t follow partisan politics and I’m not even sure who the president is these days as I am a shining star for all Americans, no matter their political inclinations. I am above such petty concerns and always will be. Of course, this leaves me with a need for a new project and purpose in life. I had Madame Rose, my manager, call the NFL to see if they might be interested in using me as the halftime entertainment but apparently they’ve already booked an act called Bunny Slippers. I haven’t heard of them. I must remember to Google.
I’ve decided a little vacation is in order to clear my mind so I called Captain Drew and had him fire up the yacht and went down to the marina. I told him to head out to sea and then turn right and I’d figure out where we were going later. Somewhere warm with a beach and where people are nice to each other and don’t call up others in the middle of the afternoon and shatter their dreams. I had had my fill of pineapple daiquiris so I made myself a large gin and tonic and settled into my cozy shipboard theater to find a film to pass the time. I was in need of a reminder of the brilliance of Hollywood’s golden age, so I stopped on Disney’s remake of its venerable Snow White, the original being one of those iconic films that changed cinema history. I was curious as to how it might be rethought for a new generation, the original now being nearly 90 years old and made for a completely different society.
I have seen a number of Disney’s live action remakes or cash grabs of its classic animated features. Some have succeeded, some have not. The needs of live action and animation in terms of story telling are very different so when it has been too faithful to the source material, it’s failed when live action characters shouldn’t do the same things as fantasy animated characters (The Jungle Book). If too much embellishment has been added to the story, it collapses under its own weight (Beauty and the Beast). I found Aladdin to be perhaps the best thought out of the genre but most of the movie going public disagreed and it seems to have sunk without a trace. When this new Snow White was shot, there was apparently some rather negative PR regarding the politics of the cast and some of director Marc Webb’s conception of the dwarves. This apparently led to expensive reshoots, additional CGI, and some story changes. Ultimately, it led to a film that is neither fish nor fowl.
The original Snow White from 1937 was the first full-length animated feature from Disney. When revisited today, it’s rather simple in plot and runs only 83 minutes making it a good length for young children. There are somewhat questionable gender politics due to the mores of the time and the heroine seems to lack any agency in her own tale. It does, however, have gorgeous visuals, the characters are sharply drawn and it has a lovely score with ‘Heigh Ho’ and ‘Someday My Prince Will Come’ quickly becoming standards that every American knows.
The remake has added half an hour to the run time, jettisoned the entire score other than the dwarves two songs, and replaced them with generic early 21st century show music by Pasek and Paul which evaporates from your brain as soon as the number’s over. This combination means that characters who should not sing (The Evil Queen – villains are always strongest in a musical when they do not sing) get solo numbers. There’s a bunch of production numbers for townsfolk which add nothing. The prince becomes an integral part of the story line and is given a sort of Robin Hood and his Merry Men subplot which is completely unnecessary and has nothing to do with the traditional fairytale. Snow herself gets some new songs which Rachel Zegler sings beautifully but which just make you wish for that heavenly voice to sing the familiar standards.
Rachel Zegler, who was so terrific as Maria in Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story, is lovely to look at and gives us a full characterization which extends the classic heroine without besmirching our memories of the original. It’s not an easy task but she does it and what succeeds in the movie rests on her shoulders. Gal Gadot, as the Evil Queen, also does a reasonable job in her role, making her diabolically malevolent. Her big musical number shouldn’t be there and it doesn’t help that she can’t really sing it. Her biggest issue is her transformation into the disguise of an evil hag. In the original, it’s truly scary and the witch has terrified generations of children. It’s been softened so much that the end result is that she’s neither ugly nor scary. The scary bits of traditional tales are important in children’s moral and intellectual development and dumbing them down to this level does no favors and damages the film. As for the prince, Andrew Burnap is blandsome. He leaves no impression at all.
The biggest disaster, however, is the dwarves. They have been CGI’d to the nth degree to try to make them both human and true to their original animated forms. The end result is that they appear to be some sort of rubber aliens purchased at discount from Wilbur Turnblad at the Hardy Har Hut. They are absolutely unwatchable and, every time they show up, they take you completely out of the movie as you find yourself looking for a rock to crawl under. I cannot believe that they didn’t run a few test scenes before the executives at Disney who, if they had any sense at all, would have sent the creators back to their drafting tables or computer terminals and tell them to fix it. It appears that they just decided to go with what they had and send it out there and hope for the best. Ultimately, it will probably be used in film school as a case study in how not to remake and market a film. It’s worth watching for Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot. Fast forward through the rest of it.
Dead queen. Disappearing king. Miraculously dry bread. Hero chained to gate. Gratuitous bow and arrow play. CGI forest creatures. Dopey looking like Alfred E. Neumann after a three-day bender. Gratuitous town choreography. Malicious dagger.
Originally from Seattle Washington, land of mist, coffee and flying salmon, Mrs. Norman Maine sprang to life, full grown like Athena, from Andy’s head during a difficult period of life shortly after his relocation to Alabama.
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