The Little Mermaid 1989

[7.2/10] The Little Mermaid is considered the beginning of the “Disney Renaissance”, a second golden age for the animation studio after years, and arguably decades in the wilderness in terms of creative and financial success. It marked the start of a new era of triumphs for Disney, paving the way for films like Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, and Aladdin that are still a part of the cultural firmament today.

It’s not hard to see why The Little Mermaid is considered such a vanguard. There are the trademarks of what people would come to expect from this stretch of Disney films: the gorgeous animation, the young hero yearning for more, the hummable tunes, the wacky animal sidekicks, the scene-stealing villains. It’s all there, all the things that became synonymous with Disney during one of its most creatively fecund periods.

Everything except, you know, a protagonist or a story with any depth.

That’s overly harsh, but what’s striking after returning to The Little Mermaid after childhood is how little figurative sketching Ariel gets compared to how much literal sketching she gets, and how much she is a passenger in her own story. The film’s protagonist is basically defined by two things: her desire to know the surface world and her love-at-first sight affection for Prince Eric.

That’s not a bad pair of motivations for a character! Sure, the desire for adventure and excitement on distant shores (or rather, away from them) isn’t exactly novel, but hey, it was good enough for Luke Skywalker. And the film’s romance is as thin as a playing card, but The Little Mermaid isn’t the first film, and wouldn’t the last to hope that it could slap two attractive people together and hope that their prettiness distracts you from the fact that it spends almost no time establishing what the foundation of their relationship is.

The problem is that The Little Mermaid doesn't really expand or explore those drives in Ariel in meaningful ways. Sure, the film uses them as fodder for fantastic songs and just as fantastic animation, but it rarely uses them to teach us any more about who ariel is or why she feels this way. She doesn't have much of a personality, let alone an identity, away and apart from these things, and it makes her feel like an empty shell of a character at the end of the film (without even mentioning her barely there drip of a boyfriend).

Worse yet, Ariel doesn't really do much or make many choices in the film, but rather, other characters in the film make choices that affect her, or random, disconnected events drive the action rather than anything Ariel does herself. There’s her absenteeism that causes problems, and she does choose to save and admire Eric despite the risks, but for the most part, Ariel is the plaything of other, more action-driven characters in The Little Mermaid which can make her feel like a passenger in her own film. Even then, obstacles are set up and knocked down within five minutes, with conflicts that seem like they could power the film raised and resolved with little import, let alone meaningful involvement from the main character.

The best you can say for the film in terms of story and character is that it maps these events onto a sense of adolescent rebellion, which gives it the broad strokes to get by on the notion that this is a naive teenager with the usual buckling at rules and restrictions biting off more than she can chew. That lends the slightest bit of meaning and significance to what is otherwise a faintly-drawn protagonist and thin story.

So why is The Little Mermaid such a classic? Well for one thing, Ursula the Sea Witch is a villain and a performance for the ages. She has basically all of the character traits that Ariel lacks. Her motivation is clearer, with a revenge plot on Triton. She has personality out the wazoo, schmoozing and manipulating her way into power with an oil, snake oil salesman verve. And she, more than anyone, drives the actions of the film: putting Ariel on land, setting the three-days ultimatum, and making the power grab that creates conflicts and stakes.

Even without those story-driving elements, Pat Carroll gives an incredible performance. Her belts and boasts as Ursula make the Sea Witch indelible, with just the right combination of lure and hook for one of Disney’s most memorable bad guys. But the same goes for the animators who bring Ursula to life. The way she squirms and undulates around her lair, or rains destruction on the humans, immediately marks her in movement and presence as something different than the rest of the men and merfolk we see.

That’s where The Little Mermaid truly, and at times, literally shines. Whatever the film lacks in plot or character, it makes up for in sheer dazzling animation. The use of light and color both above and below the water is incredible, with rippled light, ugly neon tints, and glorious sunsets all displayed in array of hues and tones to grab the eye. The film presents a stunning array of images, all expertly constructed.

But even apart from the color and light, the movements of the film are incredible. From the flows and flourishes of Ariel’s hair in the currents, to the crash of waves, to the leap of a horse over a chasm on the land, The Little Mermaid consistently brings both a realism and a creativity to the way people and objects move within the waves and above them. And the film is not above some classic slapstick, having characters like Sebastian the crab in particular behave more like traditional, bendy cartoon characters than the fluid but still truish-to-life poses it takes with the other characters.

Of course, there’s also the songs. From the inescapable joy of “Under the Sea”, to the yearning ache of “Part of Your World” to the incredible klezmer-influence and wordplay of “Poor Unfortunate Souls”, the film hits musical heights that set a new standard for Disney tunes. There’s variety and purpose in each of them, and they’ll be stuck in your head for days, or in my case, decades, after hearing them.

It’s those elements that really set The Little Mermaid apart. Even setting aside our different cultural standards in 2018 vs. 1989, there’s lots of problems with the film’s plot and its lead character. But it becomes easy to forget that when you’re swept up in the rollicking tunes, dazzled by the gorgeous animation, and amazed at how the animators and performers bring these characters to life in a way that the script regrettably falls short on. As a story, The Little Mermaid is basic and underwhelming at best, but as a showcase for an incredibly talented team of animators, designers, musicians, and performers, it still deserves its laurels for kickstarting a new era in animated films, setting the stage for even higher heights to come.

I rewatched this film with two young girls and their mom, who had never seen this Disney classic (How did that happen? Well, two of them hadn't been born when it was released in 1989). This was a film of it's time in production, character and acclaim. It set the stage for a resurgent series of highly successful animated features from the Disney Studios with it's beautiful animation and it's lively tone. It reflected a "princess" culture that would be a hard sell in our 2019 understanding of the hopes and aspirations of young girls. It introduced some unforgettable characters and was a template for future Disney characterization mixes (princesses, larger than life villians, loveable sidekicks, scene stealing attendants). And, it garnered a lot of critical acclaim, winning Oscars for Original Song "Under the Sea" and Original Score for Alan Menken ("Kiss the Girl" was also nominated in Best Song category). Upon my first viewing in 1989, I probably would have given the film a 9 (superb) out of 10, but, it didn't weather well for me (it just hit some cultural dissonance with me) so, this time, I would still give it a 7 (good) out of 10, with an overall rating, I'll split the difference with an 8 (great). [Animated Musical Feature]

Disney gives us the breezy story of a quixotic young princess who throws away her regal underwater status to... become a princess on land, instead. At the time, this material represented a fresh return to form for the studio, after thirty years of floundering with overwrought talking-animal adventures and off-brand fantasy epics. In contrast to those more ambitious undertakings, The Little Mermaid is intentionally light and airy - a simple fable that doesn't stretch beyond its own limitations - and there's a certain sense of comfortable familiarity to that. After all, aren't the best fairy tales finished in twenty pages or less?

Clarity of vision and creative restraint might seem like easy concepts, but continually hitting those targets over the length of a feature film isn't nearly as easy as it might seem. This particular effort is aided by a rousing villainess, a handful of spirited musical numbers and a bright, colorful visual identity. The animation can be weirdly inconsistent at times, but the most important moments all hit their marks and the major character designs have proven their staying power.

An inspired, back-to-basics effort from a then-desperate studio that ushered in a widely-regarded period of creative renaissance, both behind the scenes and upon the silver screens. Maybe not one of Disney's very best, but it does well enough for an eighty-minute kids' film and its broader importance can't be overstated.