I suspect there's a very complicated equation written on a white board somewhere at Disney HQ explaining why we should like 2023's Wish. One thing's for sure, the film's writers and directors tried very, very hard to make this movie, celebrating 100 years of Walt Disney Studios, the best possible. Their failure, creatively and commercially, is tragic. I can only hope it will serve as an edifying example of why an artist shouldn't put analysis before expression. I know it won't but I can hope. Or wish.
And, boy howdy, was it a failure. Let's marvel at that a moment. It was projected to make between 45 and 50 million on its opening weekend and instead made only 31.7 million. It only went down from there. Variety called it a "cataclysmic disaster".
Sometimes, good movies do poorly at the box office. Sometimes bad movies do very well. This was a bad movie that performed badly. Like so many bad movies, it seems like its chief flaws ought to have been obvious. Its confusing premise about a wicked king who accepts the wishes of his subjects, volunteered for safe keeping, is right away something that's going to be hard to explain, particularly to the film's target audience, children. I tried to imagine a mother trying to help her kid with it.
KID: What is the bad man doing, Mommy?
MOM: He's stealing their wishes.
KID: What's a wish?
MOM: You know when you want something very much?
KID: Like an iPhone?
MOM: No, no. Like something really important. Remember when you told me you wanted to be a singer?
KID: *struggles* The bad man takes Asha's voice, like Ursula?
MOM: No, no. He takes your desire to be a singer.
KID: What's desire, Mommy?
MOM: Well--it's--well. You'll understand when you're older.
KID: Can we go home now?
The film makes a lot of references to the whole of the Disney canon but there's particular attention to "When You Wish Upon a Star". It's worth remembering how clearly that functioned in Pinocchio. Geppeto wanted a little boy, Pinocchio wanted to be a real boy. The audience didn't need to take a literary analysis course to appreciate it. "Wish" comes off so much as a lousy college essay that the first laugh it got out of me was when the bullshit culminated in a song called "I'm a Star". These are actual lyrics:
Here's a little fun allegory
That gets me excitatory
This might sink in in the morning
We are our own origin story
If I'm explaining this poorly
Well I'll let star do it for me
It's all quite revelatory
We are our own origin story
I tried contemplating what it would mean if we weren't our own origin stories. Do the lyrics mean the alternative is to think that we're only supporting characters in another person's origin story? A funny thing to condemn in a movie filled with supporting characters.
The main problem with all this gobbledygook is to render character motivations utterly meaningless. It's not clear why the citizens of Rosa decided to participate in this scheme to begin with, it's not clear why they suddenly change their minds about it, it's not clear if people are able to formulate new wishes, or if people really did have dangerous (for example, murderous) wishes the king really was keeping for the public safety. I think there was some idea of this being a dystopian tale along the lines of Brave New World or 1984, one in which suppressing ambition has disastrous consequences. But the king doesn't take people's wishes until they turn 18, leaving lots of time for ambitions to accrue.
Anyway. I think it's abundantly clear it's time for Jennifer Lee to retire. The art design is really pretty, though, and I liked the purple and green palette.
Wish is available on Disney+.
X Sonnet #1838
The summoned actor stalked the shady stage.
"And where's a mark?" he asked the glaring ghost.
The shaky spectre crushed a puck in rage.
Above, the script descends to coat the host.
A pair of nervous legs traverse the dark.
A human mountain breathes across the night.
Romantic dreams began as child's lark.
What starts as shade becomes a blinding light.
A chandelier becomes a billion suns.
The wretched truth was inked throughout the sky.
As black as coffee, death invests the guns.
Demise was writ behind the spirit's lie.
The lovely pictures change to tiny dots.
Desires change to foggy math and thoughts.
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