A small, isolated community is ruled by a powerful, magical family in 2021's Encanto. Like the other Disney Animation Studios film from 2021, Raya and the Last Dragon, Encanto is very, very badly written, although it was written by a different committee (Raya was written by Qui Nguyen and Adele Lim with story by Paul Briggs, Don Hall, Carlos Lopez Estrada, Kiel Murray, John Ripa, Dean Wellins, two uncredited television writers who pitched the concept, with contributions from an "all-female leadership team" overseen by Kelsey Hurley, and "a collective of cultural consultants" while Encanto was written by Charise Castro Smith and Jared Bush with story by Byron Howard, Jason Hand, Nancy Kruse, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and a collective of Latin-American cultural experts headed by Jian Rendon and Natalie Osma). Most of the songs, as usual for Lin-Manuel Miranda, are boring and strangely monotonous except for "We Don't Talk About Bruno", which is actually really good. Visually, the film is stunning, its design drawing on South American influences to conjure a beauty that almost rivals Saludos Amigos or The Three Caballeros. Like the filmmakers of those two Donald Duck pictures, the filmmakers of Encanto took a research trip to the location depicted, in this case Colombia. And it pays off. The characters are well designed, particularly the lead, Mirabel, who, instead of being gorgeous, is cute in an appropriately Mickey Mousey way. Sadly, her voice actress, Stephanie Beatriz, has a weak singing voice and overall gives an undistinguished performance.
Although it is badly written, there are a few concepts I really like in the story. I like the idea of a story about a big family in which everyone feels secretly alienated from everyone else. John Leguizamo gives a terrific performance as Bruno whose problem is that he can see the future. And like many Cassandras before him, people hate him for it. This is one of the things that makes the song, "We Don't Talk About Bruno", so interesting.
The most interesting part of it might be an accident, though. We're treated to a series of examples of how Bruno's prognostications were interpreted as curses but the first example is kind of complicated. Mirabel's aunt Pepa (Carolina Gaitan) describes how her wedding day was ruined when Bruno predicted a rainstorm. But Pepa's magical power is that the weather reflects her mood. So in that case, Bruno really did cause the bad weather by affecting her mood. But he wouldn't have done that if he hadn't seen the bad weather in his vision so . . . It's kind of an intriguing temporal ouroboros.
But Bruno's pain as an outcast from his beloved family is pretty good, which makes it a shame the film wraps it up so quickly. I guess that may be inevitable when you have a dozen people with psychological issues in a movie that has to have a happy ending for all of them. Pepa clearly has a pathological hatred for Bruno and that just melts away in the final musical number. For a movie that's supposed to comment on the reality of familial resentment, it's a false note in a crucial part of the composition.
Mirabel's story is also introduced nicely but resolved disappointingly. She's kind of a reverse Elsa--she feels out of place in her family because she's the only one without powers and a striking moment at the end of a musical number actually shows the whole family totally forget about her when gathering for a group pose. This is a nice segue into her "I Want" song--not a very interesting song. Called "Waiting on a Miracle", it's a typically dull Miranda composition that tries in vain to be "Let It Go" that's also let down by Beatriz's weak vocal range.
The animation is good but curiously below average in quality for a Disney Animated Studios film. It's particularly noticeable with Isabela Madrigal (Diane Guerrero), the perfectly beautiful Madrigal sister. Her hair doesn't quite move properly and sometimes seems to hover off her shoulder or swing like a yardarm.
A lot of the plot makes absolutely no sense. A big piece of the story hinges on Mirabel finding a green tablet that shows a picture of her standing in front of the Madrigal mansion with cracks in its walls. She finds it in a tower formerly inhabited by Bruno and apparently for this reason alone assumes its an image of one of his prophetic visions and goes on to assume that it shows she'll be responsible for the destruction of the family. Everyone else assumes that's what it means, too, for no reason whatsoever.
The film also suffers from a weakness in the story behind its central premise. We learn in the beginning that the family matriarch, Alma (Maria Cecilia Botero), fled from her home with her husband and three babies. Her husband is killed by apparently government forces on horseback but Alma and her kids are saved when her candle somehow becomes magical, creating the "encanto", a magical valley protected by lofty cliffs. Who were the people that killed her husband? Where did they come from? Are they still a threat? Doesn't Alma worry about people back where she came from and, now that her grandchildren have superpowers, don't they ever wonder if they should be helping other victims of whatever oppressors she fled from?
Despite its flaws, Encanto is really pretty and sometimes quite sweet and interesting. It's available on Disney+.
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This is part of a series of posts I'm writing on the Disney animated canon.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Pinocchio
Fantasia
Dumbo
Bambi
Saludos Amigos
The Three Caballeros
Make Mine Music
Fun and Fancy Free
Melody Time
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
Cinderella
Alice in Wonderland
Peter Pan
Lady and the Tramp
Sleeping Beauty
101 Dalmatians
The Sword in the Stone
The Jungle Book
The Aristocats
Robin Hood
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
The Rescuers
The Fox and the Hound
The Black Cauldron
The Great Mouse Detective
Oliver & Company
The Little Mermaid
The Rescuers Down Under
Beauty and the Beast
Aladdin
The Lion King
Pocahontas
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hercules
Mulan
Tarzan
Fantasia 2000
Dinosaur
The Emperor's New Groove
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Lilo and Stitch
Treasure Planet
Brother Bear
Home on the Range
Chicken Little
Meet the Robinsons
Bolt
The Princess and the Frog
Tangled
Winnie the Pooh
Wreck-It Ralph
Frozen
Big Hero 6
Zootopia
Moana
Ralph Breaks the Internet
Frozen II
Raya and the Last Dragon
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