Anastasia 1997

[7.8/10] Anastasia is the lost Disney Renaissance film. I’ve seen fans describe it as legendary director/animator Don Bluth trying to “out-disney Disney”, and he and his collaborators do! You have the splendid imagery, the chipper and heartfelt song, the playful romance, the royal twist, the conniving villain, the cute and quippy animal sidekicks, the temporary romantic misunderstanding of intentions, a mysterious origin that culminates in connection and warmth. The ingredients that marked the Mouse’s most creatively fecund period are all present here.

Hell, you can get more specific than that. The romance, between Anya the amnesiac lost Romanov daughter and Dmitri the royal steward-turned-con artist can be summed up as “What if Ariel fell in love with Aladdin?” The title character is practically the spitting image of the little mermaid, down to her dresses, and Dmitri’s grifter with a heart of gold routine recounts both the famous street rat and his own romance with a princess-as-commoner.

The film’s villain, Rasputin, is cut from the same cloth as Jafar, and his sidekick, Bartok, is a playful spin on Iago. Hell, between Mrs. Potts herself, the inimitable Angela Lansbury, and the parental Vlad crooning an equivalent to “Tale as Old as Time” while the young lovebirds dance, you even have a healthy dose of Beauty and the Beast in there.

But you know what? I like those films. I like those archetypes. I like those elements. And while it’s easy to poke fun at it in hindsight, I like the Disney Renaissance formula. And you know what? Anastasia does it very well! With Fox animation studios now owned by the Mouse, you could incorporate Anya into the princess line-up, play this film back to back with the studio’s 1990s high water mark pictures, or do a Kingdom Hearts level set in this version 1920s France, and nothing from the film would feel out of place next to Disney’s best.

The songs are gorgeous and memorable, from the rousing chorus number of “A Rumor in St. Petersberg”, to the haunting tones of “Once Upon a December”, to the cheering fun of “Learn to Do It”, to a foot-tapping musical tour of Paris, the songwriting duo of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty play the melodies to the hilt, injecting a classic musical flair that brings the film to life.

But nothing has more life in it than the film’s sumptuous animation. Bluth and co-director Gary Goldman outdo themselves. No frame here feels out of place, no image feels shortcut, no movement feels like it had less than their complete attention. The throngs and back alleys of St. Petersberg, the grimey recesses of Limbo, the snow-covered trails to the big city, the bucolic grace of the Strasburg countryside, the impressionist splendor of Paris, are all rendered with inviting virtuosity. Each setting feels more intricate and full of details big and small than the last.

The same goes for the cinematography. The film is rife with striking shots, like Anastasia seeming tiny and alone in the stretch of a small castle, to the cramped intimacy of her traveling quarter crammed into a train car or ship’s cabin. Bluth and Goldman make tremendous use of color in light, with luminescent hues that emerge from the villain’s dark powers and Anastasia’s literal glow, to simple cinematic eye lighting that highlights the characters’ expressions in intimate moments. There is such a bravura job done with the craft of imagery and animation on display that Anastasia could thrive on its visuals alone.

Admittedly, not all of them are perfect. Anya and Dmitri in particular have a rotoscoped look to their expressions and movements that sees them veer dangerously close to the uncanny valley. Likewise, the Dowager Empress has a few awkward looks or gestures that sit too close to realism for comfort. And while the computer-animated elements are better-integrated here than in many of Anastasia’s contemporaries (I’m looking at you Treasure Planet), they’re still conspicuous and clunky in how they’re composited in some places (I’m looking at you, winged horse).

Despite that, when Bluth, Goldman, and their team don’t try so hard for verisimilitude, and lean more into impressionism, the results are stunning. The spindly, literally falling apart Rasputin is a pip, with gross gags and distinctive movements. Bartok the bat and Pooka the pup bring the requisite cuteness in their grins and tumbles. The bulbous Vlad and his paramour Sophie swing and swoon with the best of them. And the dancing, in turn elegant and regimented, or freewheeling and fluid, cements the film’s musical bona fides.

The film’s only real weakness is its story. Even as Anastasia pulls from the Disney blueprint elsewhere, the narrative is the only place it scans as played out and generic. The princess who doesn’t know she’s a princess, the young person yearning for family, the slighted bad guy after power and revenge, the journey to the big city to find your destiny, the sniping lovebirds who eventually realize they care deeply for one another, are all stock elements delivered well enough, but without anything to recommend them.

Despite pretensions to grand themes of belonging and twue wuv, Anastasia never quite achieve the grand sense of emotion and catharsis it’s going for. The closest it comes is when Anya is reunited with her grandmother, and what each thought could never be restored is finally back for both of them. But Rasputin’s motives are thin, the romance is off-the-shelf, and Anya’s “what you’ve thought you wanted is not, it turns out, what you truly desire” routine is bog standard.

And yet, it’s elevated by the performances. As much as Anya and Dmitri’s romantic tet-a-tet is the millionth derivation of Much Ado About Nothing, Meg Ryan and John Cusack have superb sparring energy, which bolsters the proceedings considerably. Kelsey Grammer is at his boisterous best as Vlad, Christopher Lloyd goes for broke exquisitely as Rasputin, and Hank Azaria nearly steals the show as the chatty batty Bartok. Of course, theater royalty Angela Lansbury lends an air of dignity, and a sense of earned sentiment, to the Doward Empress and her search for, and reunion with, her long lost granddaughter. Fill your movie with enough stellar performers, and you can muddle your way through stock characters and standard story beats to still achieve great success.

My only reservations on that front are the historical hash at play. In truth, I don’t mind that Anastasia, at a minimum, wildly warps the history it’s invoking here. Sure, the real Anastasia died with the rest of her family, and the real Rasputin wasn’t a cartoon villain, and there’s plenty of anachronisms big and small one could point to. But taken as an alternate history fairytale, which is the mode the movie plays in, that’s all easily forgiven.

What’s a little less seemly is the whole “Woe be to those poor deposed royals, who were only overthrown because power from the literal devil turned their hearts mad.” You can harbor no love for the regime that followed the Romanovs and still not love the framing of “Won’t somebody please think of the monarchy?” and the (at best) gross oversimplification, and arguable perversion, of the cultural and political movements that saw them overthrown. Perhaps the quartet of writers would have done better to follow in the footsteps of Aladdin and done a “Russia with the serial numbers filed off” pastiche instead of invoking and botching actual history.

Still, if you can set that aside (and it’s a pretty minor part of the film), Anastasia is a feast for the eyes and for the ears. It’s full of memorable characters, toe-tapping songs, and gorgeous images as far as the eye can see. And what it lacks in historical accuracy, it makes up for in jaw-dropping artistry.

What made that Disney Renaissance period so great was the combination of all those things, blended together into a collection of stories and images and iconic figures that burrowed their way into the hearts and minds of children everywhere. With their shot at the same lofty target, Bluth and Goldman prove that they can do it as well (or better) as any, and that no one, not even the Mouse, has a monopoly on that magic.