White as Snow Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.5

White as Snow Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 24, 2021

Rejiggered fairy tales have become something of a cottage industry in the wild and woolly world of show business, with a veritable glut of projects like Snow White and the Huntsman, Red Riding Hood, Hansel & Gretel Get Baked and Mirror Mirror for the big screen, television series like Once Upon a Time lighting up the small screen, and stage (and later film adaptation) properties like Into the Woods. While this is obviously a redacted list (internet sleuths are encouraged to do their own search, because the sheer number of productions in this kind of odd subgenre is truly staggering), it may of some interest to note of the films I linked to above, two were riffs on the venerable tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (to cite yet another film, albeit one that more or less hews closely to the original story), and that's the case again with this French outing from 2019. There's nothing really very innovative about this treatment, despite its shift to contemporary times and a kind of fun performance by Isabelle Huppert as the "evil stepmother", and while the film is never less than entertaining, some armchair Grimms or Gooses (as the case may be) might be wishing for something either funnier or more visceral.

White as Snow tries, perhaps a bit too stridently, to establish some Feminist street (and/or forest trail) cred by offering a young woman named Claire (Lou de Laâge) whose botched murder leads to her hiding out in the French Alps, where her "empowerment" occurs almost automatically, which allows the film to explore material that is arguably a bit more salacious than is typically associated with the basics of this tale. Claire had had the misfortune to be desired by Bernard (Charles Berling), the general manager at a luxe hotel that was once owned by Claire's late father. Unfortunately, the hotel has passed to Claire's stepmother Maud (Isabelle Huppert), who just as inconveniently (for Claire, anyway) has been carrying on an affair with Bernard and therefore isn't especially appreciative when his eye seems to be wandering to her younger and arguably more attractive stepdaughter.

The film is divided in supposed "chapters", but its literary antecedents are only sporadically adhered to, as this "new, improved" Snow White starts having a series of liberating sexual encounters with this film's version of the seven dwarves, a septet of quirky (full sized) men who just happen to be around the mountaintop environs where Claire kind of magically finds herself after escaping a planned kidnapping and killing. This part of the film tips over into cartoonish depictions with a fair degree of regularity, but at other moments it almost seems like director Anne Fontaine is trying to fashion a soft core porn version of the venerable tale.

The film achieves a certain fitful energy due to the weirdness of some of the male characters, but it is oddly hollow at its core, this despite a kind of ingratiatingly malevolent performance by Huppert, who is probably too charming by half to ever seem completely evil. White as Snow tends to circle back on itself more than once, as if the screenwriters didn't have quite enough material to work with, including several vignettes involving Claire and her "suitors", as well as Maud repeatedly trying to get rid of her troublesome quasi-relative.

The updated setting isn't necessarily exploited that much, other than in things like sets and costumes, but some of the filming locations do add a nicely evocative mood to things. There are some really gorgeous vistas that offer stunning views of mountains, valleys and villages that seem to have almost been glued precariously to various cliffsides, and the use of outdoor scenes in particular gives the visual presentation at least a bit of energy.

White as Snow Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

White as Snow is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cohen Media Group with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.00:1. The IMDb lists a "Red Monstro 8K VV", which is a model I'm not overly familiar with, but which looks like it might be a former version of what Red's own site now calls a Red Ranger Monstro, which captures at a native 8K source resolution. That leads me to believe the DI here may have been finished at 4K, because detail levels are typically quite excellent throughout this presentation, even given some stylistic quirks that can tend to offer things like diffusion filters or even less technically oriented aspects like actual weather (there are some really nicely moody shots of cloudy and misty environments in the film). The palette is really nicely vibrant throughout the presentation, and things like Maud's blood red apparel and lipstick really pop with considerable authority. There is a tendency to either light or grade scenes toward kind of buttery yellows once Claire escapes to her mountaintop hideout, but even here fine detail levels remain surprisingly high. The only minor compression issue I noticed was some very transitory banding in the main title sequence during a fadeout.

White as Snow Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

White as Snow features DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mixes in the original French, and this is another Cohen release which only offers forced English subtitles (i.e., they can't be turned off for those who understand French well enough not to need them). The surround mix is nicely expressive and definitely offers a more spacious accounting of both the numerous ambient environmental effects (courtesy of a glut of outdoor material), as well as the rather charming score by Bruno Coulais. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout, and there are no problems of any kind to report.

White as Snow Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (HD; 1:38)

White as Snow Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Fans of Isabelle Huppert or current "it girl" Lou de Laâge may find enough here to warrant checking White as Snow out, but my hunch is even ardent fans of either of these actresses may feel like the finished product never quite gets there, and in some ways represents a wasted opportunity. There may simply be too many adaptations of Snow White at this point for anything to really register in any significant way. As provocative as certain elements of White as Snow may be for some, even that element may not be pushed far enough to really give the film anything more than some passing titillation. The scenery is gorgeous, but the story is never artfully tweaked enough to provide anything really unsurprising. Technical merits are solid for those who are considering making a purchase.