All week, my daughter has been singing “Waiting on a Wish,” which was written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul and is sung by Rachel Zegler, the star of Disney’s new live-action “Snow White.” She first heard the song when we watched a behind-the-scenes clip of Zegler explaining its importance as an “I want” song. You know, it’s the song a Disney princess sings at the beginning of the movie to explain what she desires for her life. My personal favorite is Belle’s in “Beauty and the Beast.” This week, my daughter’s favorite has been Snow White’s.

Even though she hasn’t seen the movie yet (we’re going after school today), I’m fairly certain that she’s going to love it. More than any of the other live-action remakes that have been made in the last decade, this one feels particularly designed for a young audience. This is what makes it so hard to judge because, as a parent, I am part of the inevitable audience but not the intended one. So, does it really matter if the film is perhaps the strangest, hottest mess out of all the modern remakes?

By modern, I don’t mean “woke” even though the movie’s updates are, of course, being politicized that way. Instead, I’m referring to the practical updating that Disney makes in this version of “Snow White” in an attempt to honor the fairy tale’s legacy as its first animated feature-length film. The film also gives the princess an identity that is separate from her desire to marry a prince.

If you were asked to tell someone the story of “Snow White,” you would probably hit those plot points that have been embedded into our collective cultural memory since 1937: An envious stepmother wants to kill her stepdaughter for being the most beautiful in the land; the stepdaughter escapes into the forest and moves in with seven dwarfs; the stepmother finds her and tricks her into eating a poisoned apple that puts her to sleep; and Snow White awakens after a kiss from her true love, a prince from another kingdom.

In the live-action remake, this storyline is complicated. Snow White’s benevolent father has disappeared, and her stepmother (Gal Gadot) has become an evil queen who refuses to help the villagers who don’t have enough to eat and for whom life is purely about subsistence. When Snow White makes a wish at the castle well, she isn’t hoping for a prince. (There isn’t even a prince in the movie.) Instead, she is wishing to become the fearless, brave, fair and true leader that her parents raised her to be. She wants to end her stepmother’s fascist rule and make the world more fair and more equal for the villagers.

She just doesn’t feel like she’s in a position to help. This changes when Snow White is being forced to wash floors and do laundry; she meets her non-prince, Jonathan (Andrew Burnap), who is stealing potatoes from the castle’s stores. He is the leader of the Merry Men-esque band of bandits who live in the woods and steal to give to those in need. He inspires her to speak up for those who can’t.

That means that in this retelling, Snow White is given a true character arc that centers on her wanting to make the world more equitable. She is not the fairest in the land because of her beauty — although she is also beautiful — but because she is kind. The point is not that Jonathan’s kiss awakens Snow White from her sleep, so they can live happily ever after (there isn’t even a wedding at the end), it’s that she awakens so she can regain control of her kingdom from an evil witch to help the villagers just like her parents did.

For some, these obvious changes to the plot will be seen as too “woke.” However, despite the adapted storyline’s poor execution, the plot itself actually works well. It’s a natural progression that is bound to happen to a story that has been retold and evolved over hundreds of years. Even the Grimm Brothers themselves published multiple versions of “Snow White” in the early 1800s, which was just one of the many tales they collected from the storytellers around them.

When Disney first adapted “Snow White” 88 years ago, it made significant changes, removing many of the dark details in the Grimm version to make the story more palatable. In their sanitized version, the prince is not a glorified necrophiliac who makes a deal with the dwarfs to own Snow White’s dead-asleep body. Instead, he fell in love at first sight with her when she is singing at the beginning of the movie, which is why he kisses her at the end to wake her up. There is no kiss in the Grimm version. Instead, the servants carrying her accidentally drop her glass coffin and dislodge the poison apple from her throat. When she awakens, the prince informs her that he owns her. Disney turned what was a glorified example of pure coverture into a happy marriage plot.

Now, once again, Disney is changing what happily ever after means: Snow White becomes who she was meant to be, not a wife, but a queen, returning to the castle, using her words, instead of violence, to change the hearts and minds of her people.

The plot is not a hot mess because of this update. The film’s not even a hot mess because of controversies surrounding the movie. Instead, it’s the way the plot is executed, the way the creative pieces are combined to make something that just feels off. Or, as my friend who saw the film with me politely declared during the credits, “it made some ambitious choices, but they just fell flat.”

By ambitious choices, she’s referring to the use of CGI for the dwarfs and animals, inconsistent costumes and sets, and the oddity of the new original songs, like “All is Fair” and “Princess Problems.”

Going into the movie, I was nervous about the use of CGI for the dwarfs, and it just feels weird. Do I think this newest generation of kids who have grown up with “Cocomelon” will care? No. But I found the juxtaposition between Zegler’s emotive Snow White and the dwarfs’ humanless eyes and unnatural movements to be unsettling. However, those who are looking for homages to the 1930s classic may appreciate that the CGI dwarfs look like their animated counterparts.

By far, the strangest contrast in the movie is the costume and set design. Zegler’s first costume is a red and blue gown that looks like the type of costume one would order their child for Halloween; it’s identifiable as a princess gown but looks like a knock-off of itself. But, once Zegler is attired in the traditional yellow, blue and red dress, she looks like a real princess. Overall, Gadot, despite her uneven musical performance, is the most impeccably styled and looks uncannily like her animated counterpart. Even though her villain song, “All Is Fair,” is stilted and awkwardly choreographed, her scaled gown, translucent crown and jewel-toned cape are mesmerizing.

The real costuming issue lies in the outfit of Jonathan, the antithetical male lead. Everything he wears is a version of a hooded shirt that is in the style of a button-down that one would wear in the new “Outsiders” musical. The only thing that changes is the color palate. The rest of the bandits are similarly dressed, and the result is that whenever Snow White is in a scene with them, it feels like she has time traveled into a grungier location in a more modern era. It also turns the characters into one-dimensional plot pieces that are primarily there to act as living litotes, proving that Jonathan is not a prince.

This distraction is even worse during scenes with Snow White, the bandits and the dwarfs because the inconsistencies among the costuming, mix of CGI and live actors make it feel like you’re watching three different movies at the same time.

The set doesn’t help these issues. It’s hard to put your finger on exactly what’s wrong with the village, castle or woods, but, while the vegetation is lush and exactly what you’d expect to see in a fairy tale, the rest of the world feels too fake. Everything looks like the gimmicky stage you’d see in an over-acted show at a Disney park.

And, ultimately, that’s what the entire movie feels like: a production. But, does it matter?

I lean toward no. The only real issue is that it’s so bad that it probably won’t tap into the millennial nostalgia that the better-made “Cinderella,” “Aladdin,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Lion King” were able to do.

Instead, this feels like it was made for kids like my daughter, and I still think she is going to love it.

The movie portrays a princess using her privileged position to help those who were born without it. The goal isn’t marriage. It isn’t love. It’s wishing for yourself to be fearless and brave and then actually using your agency to try and become those things. If my daughter is going to emulate “Snow White,” I’d much rather her run around the house singing “Waiting on a Wish” than “Some Day My Prince Will Come.”

I think she prefers to have a song that offers her that possibility, too.