The film is a masterpiece of audiovisual art, a delicious experiment where, through a perfect soundtrack and a game of sequences, the logos merges with the mythos. The staging is daring, unique, transgressive and above all magical. A play of light and shadow transports us to a fantasy theater that we will never see or shape. The only hint we are given of the setting is with the American-style opening of the curtain. The film plays with disorientation (as in a magic trick) from the first second, where the fourth wall is broken.
It is a unique work of its kind, combining reality with animation, theater with cinema, dance and classical music. It does not need a script adulterated with dialogues to flow, so it is not limited to an age or a time, which is why it has not aged almost, retaining its magic and charm. It is timeless and for all audiences. The only condition is to love art, because if you are one of those who watch movies to be entertained by their stories, without taking into account the mise-en-scène and everything that goes with it (lighting, set design, composition, camera positions...), you will not enjoy the film.
[9.2/10] There’s a combination of changing norms and the joy of snark that causes us to look back on our childhood favorites with mild mockery. For Disney princesses in particular, it’s easy to poke fun at tropes or story choices that reflect a very different era. And on top of making fun, there’s room for genuine concern about the sort of implicit lessons even classic films impart to the kids watching them.
So there’s reason to be wry or even wary about returning to Beauty and the Beast, the 1991 classic from Walt Disney Animation Studios, despite its place the first animated film to ever be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. There’s room to be concerned that the message to little kids, especially young women, is “put up with romantic partners who treat you poorly, because they probably have a heart of gold.” And there’s a place for criticisms of the film as a paean to Stockholm Syndrome.
But revisiting the film, not as the cultural signifier it’s become in the past decades, but as a living, breathing piece of art, reminds you not only what an artistic achievement the film was and is, but also of how it address and subverts the very social criticisms that have stuck to in the years since its release.
The film focuses on Belle, a young woman in provincial France who loves to read and dreams of living a life of adventure like the ones in her story. When her father Maurice, the local eccentric inventor, stumbles into the castle of a prince cursed to look like a beast for his unkindness and superficiality to a wandering enchantment, he’s imprisoned there. An attempted rescue turns into a prisoner exchange, where Belle agrees to take her father’s place, slowly bristles with but comes to know the Beast, while the collateral damage-cursed staff of the manor hopes she might be the one to bring true love and break the spell and make them human again.
It’s a fairly traditional storybook kind of tale from Disney, one that later films like Shrek in particular would satirize and even deconstruct a bit. But what sets Beauty of and the Beast is how well it earns every plot and character choice in the fairytale setting, rather than relying on convenience or fiat.
The film establishes Belle’s love for and protectiveness over her father as a defining character trait, one likely borne and reinforced of the scorn he receives in their community, which drives her willingness to take his place and her pull back home. The Beast, internalizing his own self-hate and feeling of hideous otherness, projects it onto others and is still overcoming is spoiled youth all these years later. Hell, even Gaston, the pompous, rock-headed local hunter, has plausible, internally-consistent reasons for wanting to marry Belle -- he thinks they’re the two prettiest people in town and thus the laws of nature dictate that they should be together.
Therein lies the core theme of the film. It’s easy to poke fun at the film’s “real beauty is one the inside” moral, but it dramatizes that idea exquisitely. There’s obviously the Beast himself, whose treating a seemingly haggard old woman poorly because of her appearance earns him this curse and teaches him, in harsh but effective terms, what that approach (and its opposite) gets you. There’s his foil in Gaston, the man who is dashing and square-jawed on the outside, but rotten, dumb, self-absorbed, and prejudiced on the inside. And of course there’s Belle herself who is, true to her name, a beauty, but who doesn't live up to the community’s expectations for beautiful women and so finds herself a curiosity, ones who yearns to find a person she can really talk to rather than just another pretty face. The lesson may be trite, but it’s laudable, and the way that Beauty and the Beast bounces these characters off of one another to teach it is superb.
And that’s all before you get to the things that make these sorts of Disney Renaissance films so delightful, and not just admirable in their message and impressive in their story sense. For a film so dead set against any notion of superficiality, Beauty in the Beast is absolutely gorgeous in terms of its design and animation. From the autumn landscapes the film opens with, to the maze of quaint homes and shops in Belle’s village that become covered in snow, to the haunting and then luminous castle that becomes the main setting of the film, you’ll gawk with awe at each new setting and backdrop.
The design team crafted characters who fit that world. with Belle herself who fits the “princess-in-waiting next door” look but in a way that tones down some of Disney’s traditional excesses in that archetype, the Beast who is in turn menacing and vulnerable in his stature and body language, to the ludicrously-proportioned Gaston who is pompous masculinity personified, the main figures in this tale have designs that fit with what they represent in the story. And the remaining cast -- both human and household object -- bend and move and squish with charming flair.
Those side characters help keep the proceedings light and keep a smile on your face (and occasionally tug at your heartstrings) even when the story’s getting heavy. The Bert and Ernie routine of Lumiere and Cogsworth, the clock and candelabra twosome who bring the laughs, try to ease Belle, and coach up their master, are a consistent highlight. Angela Lansbury brings her genteel warmth to Mrs. Potts (with her pandering but effective little boy, Chip). And even the sycophantic LeFou has a certain endearing quality in his henchman buffoonery with Gaston.
Of course, no Disney Renaissance film would be complete without songs, and Beauty and the Beast doesn't skimp on them. The showcase number, “Be Our Guest” is the most classic tune in the bunch, a rousing number that starts slow and builds and builds and builds to a stunning crescendo. Gaston’s villain song is a just as fun tribute and introduction to both the character and the misguided rationales behind his place at the top of the food chain. And the opening “Little Town” number does a great job of both establishing Belle and the setting in one fell swoop.
And all of those rollicking, well-written tunes are accompanied by that era’s standard but no less striking animation. The bending, bulging flatware that somehow puts on a big broadway show of a meal for Belle populates a superlative and creative sequence. The buzzing ecosystem of Belle’s “little town” conveys movement and clockwork humor in the opening scene. And even the crossover hit-fashioned title tune sports some of the earliest and most prominent use of computer animation, there to help make the budding romance between Belle and the Beast seem all the more sweeping and majestic.
Still, what marks that romance as more than just a Disney flick inevitablity, or a regrettable retrograde result, is how Beauty and the Beast takes the time to earn and does the legwork to earn it. Yes, the Beast is, at best, a jerk to both Belle and her father, but rather than him suddenly having a change of heart while he falls in love, it takes constant reminders and encouragement and the threat of being stuck this way forever to make the Beast change his ways. It’s not some easily-gained or simple switch, it’s a strong change in personality, motivated by (admittedly self-interested) people encouraging him to be better.
And Belle herself doesn't just suddenly accept the Beast’s crap. The thing that softens their relationship and keeps Belle from just bolting on him is the way he risks his life to save her, something that shows there’s decency within him. But even then, she’s not suddenly fawning over him, and even when she’s tending to his wounds, she calls him on his crap. The film not only dramatizes why Belle would give Beast the slightest chance to be a decent guy after how he starts, but shows her and Lumiere/Cogsworth/Mrs. Potts still challenging him when he doesn't meet that standard.
By the same token, the film earns that notion of true love between Belle and the Beast. It would have been easy for the movie to coast on the goodwill of cutesy montages involving baby birds, and heartwarming songs bolstered by the production’s impressive design and animation team. Instead, Beauty and the Beast does more. It has the Beast make a choice -- a choice to sacrifice his own happiness, his own chance at redemption, in order to vindicate what Belle wants. Contrary to any moral on the merits of Stockholm Syndrome, the film posits that true love comes from freely-made choices, and from being willing to put the wants and needs of someone you care about over your own because you not only recognize it’s the right thing to do, but because you want to.
The film’s ending is rife with the silly slapstick and striking fisticuffs and bright, shiny postscript that you expect from Disney. But Beauty and the Beast more than earns the path to there from its beginning. More than just the hummable tunes, more than those breathtaking images, more than just the fairytale trappings, it transcends those modern-day critiques by embracing a story where, through challenging circumstances, personal choices, and an understanding of the depths that lie beyond the surface, someone we love can help us to find fulfillment where we weren’t expecting it, and even to become our better selves.
I read the book as this release came nearer, and I thought that while good, it was clearly a ‘first big passion project that grew in scope and theme in the telling’. And that resulted in a charming work, but also one that could be refined and sharpened if given a second go around and seen by experienced eyes. Well, this movie did that and then some. It’s an affecting allegorical fairy tale for our time, one I honestly sorely needed after all that happened today.
If there’s one word to sum it up, it’s unapologetic. There’s a very big reason Disney didn’t take this on, yes, but there’s a whole lot smaller ones too. This is daring in a way their work hasn’t been allowed to be in years, if not a decade or two. A gay romance is one of its centerpieces, but it also tackles the fear of the other hurting so many today, the classism holding so many down, how it’s rooted institutionally, how you can’t just play nice and appease them. Balister did everything right, he played by the rules, he excelled, he gives them chance after chance, but that’s never going to be enough. The system and those behind it will toss you aside because you don’t belong.
Riz Ahmed plays him perfectly, making what could’ve been a stick in the mud such fun to listen to, and displaying his journey from lost and tossed aside golden boy to a man who’s found strength in the truth and most of all, his friend. In conjunction with the most effective set of puppy dog eyes I’ve ever seen, you can’t help but feel and root for him. Beck Bennett is always a gem in any ensemble and gets some big laughs. Eugene Lee Yang was a sleeper hit- I didn’t expect a Try Guy to remind me so heavily of Crispin Freeman, and that is high praise. It’s not that he sounds like a discount version of him, but that he has a similar lived in earnestness and genuine personality amidst a theatrical and dramatic performance, somehow grounded and knightly all at once. And Conroy is a risible antagonist, one who has convinced herself her paranoia and prejudices are noble and for the greater good and all the worse for it. She does not consider herself a monster by any means, but an aggrieved martyr doing what must be done, and Conroy makes her real while not sympathetic to anyone but herself.
But the most striking performance of all, of course, is Chloe Grace Mortez as Nimona. She put her heart into this role and you can feel it. She straddles the line of what could’ve been either ‘softened and smoothed so as to lose all edges’ and ‘so obnoxious and bloodthirsty so as to lose empathy’, and makes it look easy, instead conveying a character who’s found her way to survive in a world that turned its back on her first. An inner pain at the heart of her rage, one that’s always hoping that she’ll be proven wrong. Or rather, proven right with what she first saw all those years ago- that people can accept and love something different. But the film also never frames her as in the wrong for pointing that anger where it belongs- at the system that props up what was done to her. Many films would’ve agreed the director was the only problem, but this one asserts that the institute and the wall that enables and created her must also be torn down. Mortez goes hand in hand with immaculate writing and gorgeous animation to craft a character who’s hilarious, heartfelt, and devastating. Nimona in motion is such a striking vibrancy against everything else, bringing a life and beauty and color they don’t see until the end. And it makes it such a gut punch when Nimona has lost hope and that pink is replaced with black and white.
There’s a lot of ways Nimona resonates with today. The Director exclaiming Balister has a weapon is a subtle, brief one that only lasts a minute but hits like a punch to the gut. There’s Nimona defending herself being taken as self evident proof she is a monster. There’s her suicide attempt, where the rampage in the book is a path of vengeance here it’s just a last resort after once again losing everything and being rejected on a fundamental level. All that is one reason Disney wouldn’t take this on. But another is it’s sense of humor, or in acknowledging that yes kids know what blood is and many like it and they can handle it. The movie’s not a bloodbath by any means, but blood is just. There! Gay people are there! This movie, despite Disney, despite the conservative backlash against queer children’s media, is here. Saying you are seen. You are not alone. It’s something I think a lot of people, of any age, needed to hear today, and will need to hear in the future. I know I’m one of them.
We lose more Alphas that way...
There is a lot of charm and fun in this movie, it's good to see everybody again (which few they could sign on). A lot of attention was given to recreating the original vibe of the 1993 series. The camera angles, the music, the corny one-liners. ...so many corny one-liners...
And that's where the goodness comes to an end.
This movie is short, less than an hour long. It is painfully obvious that David Yost and Walter Jones were the only two original Rangers they could get. The others are in full costume and say nothing outside of grunting noises (except for a single word from Thui that is probably lifted from an old episode), then are taken off the board very early in the film. Replacing them is a hodgepodge of whichever Rangers from subsequent series they could get - Walter Jones being the only person who doesn't look and sound past his prime.
The evil plot has a lot of potential, especially when you think about how it could open the door for so many different cameos and so much more nostalgia... and then it get's clipped and the finale turns into a bog standard monster fight. There are a number of fun cameos and callbacks, but not as many as you would think. All of that said, the final battle is satisfying. The classic locations and vehicles, which are just as much characters themselves, also get their chance to shine one more time.
This is more of a special extended episode to cap off the original series. Viewed that way, it's nice enough. But the more you think about it, the more missed opportunity you start to notice and lament about. It's obvious that they wanted this to be a send off for Thui Trang more than a cast reunion. I understand her real-life daughter was the best choice to honor Thui as a person, but she was not the best choice to make for the character of Trini's in-universe daughter. In a universe of intentionally-campy acting and stilted writing, she still made certain scenes difficult to watch.
The final bit at the end did make me misty eyed. As much for Thui Trang as for Jason David Frank (who doesn't factor into the plot AT ALL) ...and for seeing all the other missing Rangers who are still alive but couldn't be arsed to be there for whatever reason.
If you grew up watching the American Power Rangers, this is an adequate coda that could have... should have been more. Otherwise, you are probably going to be extremely turned off (or possibly even offended) by all the hokeyness that people like me forgive with the tremendous power of nostalgia.
Just got back from The Super Mario Bros. Movie, 'twas a FUNtastic family film, lots of neat Easter eggs for life-long fans of the old-school (like myself)! :spades: Having Jack Black cast as Bowser is probably one of the best things about this because character-wise they match so well (along the rock music which made me think of his band Tenacious D and School of Rock). Charles Martinet voiced a couple of side characters as well; sharp listeners will know whom :wink:. I always thought that if they could make an original animated film like Wreck-It Ralph, imagine if there would be a new Mario movie in similar fashion; well finally this would be it. This time, Illumination with Nintendo's involvement, it's done just right. I grew up with the games, the Super Show animated series (along with Captain N and Legend of Zelda), as well as the 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros. movie, so having the Mario Rap at the beginning couldn't have been more perfect. This 2023 reboot is more in line with the 1986 Japanese animated film, Super Mario Bros.: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach but done in modern 3D-CG style. The pacing is a bit on the quick side, but I think it works well to keep the audience, especially the younger ones, more attentive, as there's always something happening, with a couple of resting points here and there. The music cues were on point, and I think original games' composer Koji Kondo must be proud to hear each of the classic melodies orchestrated as each character and areas are introduced on screen. There are some licensed classic 80s pop/rock songs thrown in too for general fun (The Beastie Boys, A-HA, Bonnie Tyler). Story-wise, it's as simple as one would expect where the hero(es) fights the villain, resulting in a satisfying ending much like recent video game related films such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Pokémon: Detective Pikachu. NES era references can be spotted like Kid Icarus, Punch-Out!!, Wrecking Crew, Pauline (from Donkey Kong), Duck Hunt, Ice Climbers, as well as the Arwing from (Star Fox), Luigi's ringtone is the GameCube intro, DK Rap from Donkey Kong 64, Super Mario Bros. 3/World/64/Sunshine/Galaxy/Odyssey, and of course the Mario Kart series. There were even some older Nintendo references in there like the Nintendo Playing Cards Spade logo on one of the buildings, "Help Me, Jump Man", and a "Disk-kun" on one of the shops which is a reference to the Famicom Disk System. There's also a mid-credits and a little something at the end of the credits, so stick around for those. :egg::star:
*Brosnan And Russo Dance*
Allow me to be romantic. For this is a romance, after all.
Remember that time you were with her (or him) when you suddenly, for the first time, thought, "I think I might be in love with her"? And the supreme pleasure of that thought was tinged with an element of doubt..."but what if she doesn't feel the same way"?
Take the first stirrings of love and blend it with a smoothness. Smooth like smooth jazz. Like a warm brandy. Smooth like a ballad sung by Sting. "The Thomas Crown Affair" is smooth.
This is my favorite film by Rene Russo. She is so smart and so stunning. She could easily be the object of an artist's affections, right?
Remington Steele. Bond, James Bond. In "Thomas Crown". Pierce Brosnan gets the role where he is his smoothest. No sharp edges. Collected even when not cool. Like a muted trumpet. Like a Modigliani.
They play the game of confidence, where the artist promises to trust the pigeon. Not since "Double Indemnity" has the business of insurance been this sexy. There are other worthy performances here, but this is a pas de deux, aided by some wonderful writing.
The final sequences are clever, captivating, perhaps confusing in the best way, but then....smooth.
Why compare this film to the original? Why compare a Modigliani to a Titian? Just enjoy the ride.
My Score: 7/10.
A jaded, egotistical, charismatic playboy weapons manufacturer is forced to take a close look at the human toll charged by his product and undergoes a morality crisis. As a means of getting through that, and making amends for his contributions to the military-industrial complex, he develops a succession of swanky, flying, armored suits and blows stuff up. I'm being a little snarky here, because the plot does an admirable job of cartwheeling through the various explanations and motives behind that transition and it's never quite so simple as "bad guys can get rockets so I built a special rocket with racing strips that only I can control." And even if it were, isn't that a perfect encapsulation of the public attitude taken by most media-friendly billionaires?
Jon Favreau does a tremendous job in the director's chair, establishing the tone and character of the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe in one clean, tight swoop. There's a lot of dangerous territory to tread here, iffy moments that could've easily fallen on the wrong side of the cornball, but Favreau manages to get through each one without losing credibility or thumbing his nose at the spirit of the source material. That's a whole lot easier said than done.
Still, I'm not sure this ship could've stayed afloat without Robert Downey Jr. in the lead role. He is the wind in the MCU's sails, a picture-perfect casting who dominates the screen every time he's near it. As a personality-driven action movie, that kind of presence is crucial. His balance of smug arrogance, cynical humor, intense determination and technological brilliance is just right, a wonderfully complex, fascinating turn which reveals different facets in every new light. No wonder they built a trillion-dollar franchise around this guy. His initial foil, a bald-and-bearded Jeff Bridges, is also very well developed and portrayed. I wish he'd stuck around for one or two sequels, because good villains would soon become a major weakness for this series and his character arc really splutters at the end.
I actually liked the first Sing because it felt so sincere from the characters' perspective (not Moon's, I still hate him). But this film just throws it all out the door aside from Johnny and Ash who have somewhat interesting personal stories but feel like rehashes from the previous one.
Sing 2 is great when it comes to its colourful visuals and of course the musical numbers. But falls flat in the story department and especially in its villain. It is just the first movie over again but with the villain just one-dimensional. There is no effort to even try to have the villain be slightly compelling or relatable to any degree and doesn't add any motivation besides typical greed. Boring.
While I did say the visuals are colourful and great, it lacks any creativity like any Illumination film with how it uses the shots. It feels so flat and relies on the characters to tell the story as it doesn't show. But like I said, the first film managed to do a good job with characters and their perspectives. Here it can't juggle all the plotlines going on. Even with it being so simple.
This movie is not good. But Taron Egerton is just superb in his role as Johnny so I can't fault it too hard.
4/10
[7.7/10] There is a little bit of magic in Disney films of a certain stripe, where the music swells, and the counterpoint kicks in, and the protagonist hears the call to adventure, and your icy heart can’t help but melt a little as you feel the hero's same pull toward the horizon and trepidation over whether they can make it in time to the beat. Moana is filled to the brim with these moments, ones that make the most the hero's journey it sets the title character on and her combination of self-confidence, internal conflict, and uncertainty that give her layers and make her compelling.
But if, like me, you’ve been watching that same stripe of Disney movie since you were barely able to hum along to the music, then that formula, even a particularly entertaining version of it, can’t have the same impact that it once did. Moana is cheery, exciting, and fun from start to finish, but it doesn't break much new ground among its mouse-eared brethren, and while its rendition of the form is quite good, it’s not quite good enough to transcend it.
The best elements of the film are its music and its visuals. As to the former, Moana can boast the best set of Disney tunes on the big screen since the studio’s Renaissance era. The team of Opetaia Foa'i, Mark Mancina, and Lin-Manuel Miranda combine to concoct a series of consistently amusing, oft-stirring, and always head-bob-worthy songs that carry the film forward. From the moving chorus and counterpoint of “Where You Are” and “How Far I’ll Go” that are remixed and revisited throughout the film, to the clever humor and wordplay of “Shiny” which recalls the best of Disney’s character songs, the soundtrack alone is reason to cue this film up and stick with it through the end credits.
The same is true of the film’s visuals. Moana captures the Polynesian island aesthetic in a way that simultaneously manages to capture the natural beauty of the tropical setting in almost endless splendor, and expand it into the realm of the mystical and supernatural that feels like a natural extension of that aesthetic rather than a betrayal of it. The film is water-adjacent for the vast majority of its runtime, and uses the movement of the seas, the canopy of sky and stars overhead, and the colorful, kinetic obstacles the world throws at them in between, to create a picture that could survive on its visuals alone even if the music weren’t as good as it is.
That extends beyond the setting and cinematography. Moana features a pair of wordless characters who nonetheless have personality and important parts to play within the story. The film uses the living tattoos of Maui, a braggadocious demigod, as his conscience. Creating a sense of motion, magic, and the pull of duty and caring through the gestures and nudges of Maoi’s miniature ink equivalent is no small feat, and it’s done in new and creative ways each time.
By the same token, Moana makes the ocean itself a character, and not just in one of those cheesy, “the city is really a character in my novel” sort of ways. In a fashion that recalls the magic carpet from Aladdin, the ocean that surrounds Moana at all times is a legitimate presence and persona in the movie, one that can seem playful, rueful, encouraging, or majestic with the way it bobs up and splashes back. The animation team manages to make an amorphous blob of water feel like a friend, which is itself a unique achievement.
What holds Moana back is the way it comes off like a mix and match of elements from other films in the Disney canon. Moana’s self-proclaimed crazy lady of a grandmother is one of the most enjoyable parts of the film, but her comings and goings feel like combination of similar characters in Pocahontas and The Lion King, and happen at all-too-convenient times. The story beats, while nicely molded to fit the setting and this particular take, will be familiar to anyone who’s seen a good sampling of the studio’s prior films. And the character’s crestfallen lows, soaring highs, and goofy middles are well done, but feel like the latest flavor of Disney’s classic theme and variation.
That said, Moana can boast a few things in its favor that help distinguish it and make it worthwhile independent of the company it keeps. First, it dispenses with the love story. While there’s hints of flirtation and playfulness between Moana and Maui, this is a tale of Moana figuring out who she is, what she’s made of, and how best to lead her people while caught between the importance of tradition and the pull of the great unknown. That’s more than enough to sustain a story like this, and thankfully Moana doesn't try to shoehorn in a standard Disney romance where it’s not needed to weigh that down.
Second, the film is well-aware of the tropes its playing with. Maui has a quick but amusing explanation of why Moana is a standard issue princess (which he issues over her protests), a definition the film both leans into and subverts a bit, and he also pokes fun at her designation as The Chosen One. The hero’s journey that Moana embarks on isn’t all that novel, but the movie has the good sense to wink at its conventions without winking too hard at the audience, which takes a bit of the edge off.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, Moana is simply charming. Some of that charm comes off as a little empty if you think too hard about it, but through a combination of the fun banter between Moana and Maui, the cast of silly and heartwarming support characters, and the way the spirit of Polynesian traditions and culture are embraced and reflected make for an engaging film, even when it’s employing a familiar playbook.
That’s the trick of the uber-Disney film. There’s a certain formula that’s updated and refreshed for each new generation, but remains recognizable and a little less revelatory to the old guard that sweeps into the theater. But somewhere in the midst of the update, of the endearing, silly figures that populate the film, the splashy visuals that make you want to visit Motunui, and the songs that will be stuck in your head for days to come, the magic happens, and you stop caring about the fact that you’ve kinda sorta seen it all before, and just enjoy the moment.
[7.9/10] We have so many stories about the burden of being the chosen one. Everything from Harry Potter to Buffy Summers to Avatar Aang delves into the burden of carrying the world on your shoulder as the fabled champion. It’s a good thing, to humanize those fighting against a supernatural evil, make them recognizably human despite their heroic poses and incredible gifts.
But Encanto explores something rarer -- the burden of not being the special one, of feeling like you have something to give the world even if you haven’t been blessed by the divine or fate or random chance with the abilities of your fellow men and women. The movie celebrates the self-made miracles that follow in the wake of those individuals, who likewise struggle with self-doubt and certain hurts, but who also do the hard work of making things better without the magical boosts the chosen ones have in tow.
The center of the story is a young woman named Mirabel, the lone powerless member of the magical Madrigal family. Since her abuela first discovered the titular “encanto” (or enchantment), every Madrigal child received a wonderful “special gift” when they came of age. It could be super-hearing or the ability to speak to animals or even the power of prophecy. But whatever the gift, the family uses their collective talents to help build and protect their town.
The film is, effectively, a tug of war between Mirabel, who feels left out of the family due to the encanto mysteriously skipping her, and her grandmother, who is fiercely devoted to holding the family, the miracle, and the home and town both fuel, together at any cost. Mirabel labors to do good, to contribute, despite being the lone non-magical Madrigal under their roof. And Abuela Alma pressures everyone in the family, including herself, to use their powers to the peak of their potential in order to be worthy of the mysterious gifts they’ve received.
It’s a potent metaphor for the story of so many immigrant families. The older generation is acutely aware of the sacrifices necessary to scrape together what their family has, so well-meaning parents and older relatives push their progeny to climb higher, do better, to hold onto it and be worthy of their blessings. The younger generations, in turn, can mean well but crack under that pressure, feeling as though they’re not good enough or that if they stumble, even a little, they’ll be letting “the family” down. The resolution of those two sides, the harmony it finds in intergenerational understanding, is Encanto’s greatest strength.
But hey, the pure aesthetics and artistry of the presentation aren’t bad either! The family dynamics Encanto deploys are universal, but it’s a devotedly Colombian movie. Along with other recent Disney animated films, that cultural specificity gives it a greater flavor and a rich tradition to pull from when filling in the corners of its world. The colors, architecture, flora, fauna, food, and dance all have a distinctive flair, which make the movie an inviting and enervating experience.
To that end, the studios’ animators continue to outdo themselves. There’s an incredible amount of expression in the movements of Mirabel and her family, whether they’re salsaing or arguing or heaving donkeys around. In both traditional music numbers set within the heightened (and radiant) reality of the film, and in more impressionistic numbers with fantastical representations of the characters’ wishes and anxieties, the directors and animators catch the eye with fabulous movements and inventive imagery. As pure visual expression, the movie wows.
The same goes for the music. With original songs from Lin-Manuel Miranda, there’s an almost effortless sense of high quality melody and verse at play. Miranda’s trademarks, with fast-talking verbiage and a cacophony of parts stacked on top of one another, return here with the composer’s usual alacrity. But so too does his ability to stir the soul, in inspirational tunes and sentiments that could come off saccharine were the craft not so good and the harmonies not so piercing. The artist remains Disney’s cheat code, with songs that soar nearly as well as those in the Miranda-assisted Moana.
That film scans as Encanto’s closest predecessor, another tale of a young woman finding her place in the hierarchy of her family and village, grappling with how she differs from expectations. The film pulls from other pieces of Disney history, with a second act sequence that evokes the Cave of Wonders escape from Aladdin, and a delightful living house character that feels of a piece with Beauty and the Beast. But it’s Moana, with its similar musical stylings, comparable visual flair, and lack of a villain in favor of reconciliation and self-actualization, that proves the closest analogue.
And yet, in its own way, Moana is also a chosen one story, while Encanto marks new territory for the House of Mouse, in exploring how those less “burdened by glory” can still make the grandest contributions. In the end, Mirabel not only unravels the mystery (more or less) of what her missing uncle Bruno prophesied, but discovers that the family members she envied for their abilities struggle just as much as she does to live up to expectations, in a way that went unseen by their abuela. It reconnects her with the family members she bristled with or otherwise felt apart from.
More than that, though, when the miracle does fail, when the family home does crumble, when the town they support does crack, it’s Mirabel who gives everyone the strength to rebuild it, magic or no magic. In the absence of those gifts, she learned to be strong without it, to rely on herself, on hard work and empathy, to make the difference, which turns out to be exactly what the family needs. The town, rather than turning on the Madrigal, comes to help in the effort, completing the “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” sensibility of the fable.
In the effort, Abuela Alma recognizes that Mirabel is the miracle, that her children and grandchildren matter far more as who they are than the gifts that they bear. It’s a lovely, life-affirming sentiment, where both generations truly see one another and recognize both their mutual struggles and the good intentions behind them.
The Madrigal family that reunites under a new banner is a slightly scrappier one, falling short of the standards of perfection both chosen ones and immigrant families hold themselves to. But it is also one which is more whole and full of acceptance, where all of the cousins and kin are allowed to relax and express themselves, where those who remain unblessed by the supernatural or fated still find ways to be extraordinary.
