Encanto
Composite Score: 84.65
Starring: Stephanie Beatriz, María Cecilia Botero, John Leguizamo, Mauro Castillo, Jess Darrow, Angie Cepeda, Carolina Gaitan, Diane Guerrero, Rhenzy Feliz, Ravi Cabot-Conyers, Adassa, and Maluma
Directors: Jared Bush, Byron Howard, and Charise Castro Smith
Writers: Charise Castro Smith and Jared Bush
Genres: Animation, Comedy, Family, Fantasy, Musical
MPAA Rating: PG for some thematic elements and mild peril
Box Office: $256.79 million worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
Encanto is the animated Disney film about a magical Colombian family, their magical house, and their struggles to get along with each other and keep their community safe as their magic starts to fade, apparently as a result of something their only powerless member, Mirabel, has done. The film features original songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda and a stellar voice cast, including Stephanie Beatriz as Mirabel, John Leguizamo as Bruno, and María Cecilia Botero as Abuela Alma. The film received Oscar nominations for Best Original Score and Best Original Song (“Dos Oruguitas”) and won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film. Its lively and memorable original songs, consistently excellent animation, and story about generational trauma and the pressures of family made it an instant classic and one of the most popular films of 2021.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
Critically acclaimed and awarded as it is, Encanto feels like a blend of 90s Disney blended with modern Disney, and not always in a good way. Positively (which we’ll dive more into in a second), the film’s music develops the characters and story like the classic music of Alan Menken (Beauty and the Beast and Hercules), and the film’s themes and representation feel modern, personal, and relevant. While the music fits fairly naturally within the story, all of the musical numbers go in a more modern direction in their animation, playing almost as music videos in the midst of the film rather than actually within the world of the film – an aesthetic that feels specifically geared toward the viral nature of the songs rather than taking creative advantage of the medium of animation. Unfortunately, the film’s story suffers a bit as well, feeling more like the predictable plot of a classic family dramedy than the genre-twisting and type-breaking stories that we’ve gotten from more recent Disney stories like Frozen, Big Hero 6, and Zootopia. Additionally, while the first two acts of the film do a good job of establishing setting and creating conflict, the conflict resolves rather easily in the third through a montage flashback (that the main character doesn’t actually witness but responds to anyway) and the “power” of family/community.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
Going off of how well its music fits with and develops its story and how ubiquitous the songs were at its time of release, this might be Disney’s best musical of the last fifteen years. Miranda is a skilled musical songwriter, particularly when it comes to crafting songs that develop the characters, and he showcases that excellently here with the songs “Waiting on a Miracle”, “Surface Pressure”, and “What Else Can I Do?” that each develop the desires and insecurities of the characters Mirabel, Luisa, and Isabela, respectively. It helps that these songs also sound good with catchy melodies and memorable lyrics, in which they are also joined by the likes of “The Family Madrigal” and “We Don’t Talk About Bruno”, which might actually be the song that got more play than I could ever have imagined.
Within these popular songs, the film’s themes of dealing with the pressure of family expectations, fear of letting others down, the need to prove oneself to family, and generational trauma come to the fore, and they are further explored in the story built around the songs. For Mirabel, not receiving a gift has left her as a bit of an outcast within her own family, and the rest of her family feels the pressure of the community and their matriarch to always be on their A-game when it comes to using their magic. Most of this pressure comes from Abuela Alma’s past and the history of their sequestered community, which just carries over to the younger generations until it causes the breaking (literally and figuratively) of the family and their house that they have to fix. The film’s message of learning to live with imperfection and living by your own standards rather than allowing others’ expectations to dictate your choices help it remain resonant even with the aforementioned predictable plot structure.
Poignant themes of overcoming generational trauma and embracing your own self-confidence rather than finding it in the approval of others combine with an excellent musical soundtrack from Lin-Manuel Miranda in Encanto to give us an animated film worthy of a spot among film greats. Its uniquely stylized musical numbers and easy-to-predict plot might leave it lacking somewhat in certain departments, but it makes up for that lack by being great in its areas of strength. It is currently streaming on Disney+ for anyone looking to watch it in the near future.
