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Encanto: Film Critique
Jan. 10th, 2022 02:32 amSo I had the opportunity to watch a relatively new Disney movie, 'Encanto', and... I don't know what to think.
The good part: I watch Disney movies mainly for the soundtracks anyway, and, WOW, Lin-Manuel Miranda delivers!
The bad part... Uh. I have this kind of hate-love for Lin-Manuel Miranda. He's clearly one of the best songwriters out there - really - but... He consistently ends up working on projects I hate. Whether that's super-weird political propaganda stuff ('Hamilton': questionable content with really catchy songs) or cringey Disneyfications of Polynesian religion ('Moana', and yes, it's really just as awful as the concept sounds - but with, again, really nice music... 'We know the way' and 'How far I'll go' are two of my favorite Disney songs, but I will say that film never should have been made), Miranda seems to have this special talent to immerse himself in seriously awkward shows. Still, I had hopes for 'Encanto': it's a story about a Colombian family with magical powers, and everyone lives together in a magical house. Basically, hearing the summary, I expected bland but somewhat entertaining kitsch in the narrative style of 'Frozen'. Not much that can go wrong there, right?!?
Um.
I'm not going to go into the treatment of Colombian culture here: I don't know anything about Colombia, I've never been there. It's obviously a Disneyfied view of that culture, with happy villagers who are dancing to folk tunes all the time - but, I mean, it's Disney, they do that with everything, and whether you want to call it racist or just accept it as a weird stylistic quirk is entirely up to you. XD Anyway - that's not my main problem with this film. (It's nowhere near as bad as 'Moana', anyway: at least it stays away from religion.)
My actual problem? I hated everyone.
Really. Every. Single. Character. Who the hell wrote this story? I mean - it's supposed to be a family story, and I'm sure the makers intended it to be this uplifting story about a girl working hard to understand her family members and bring them closer together with the powers of empathy and hope, yadda, yadda... But, seriously? That whole family is toxic as f*ck. I'll just say, if I were Mirabel (the annoyingly cheerful and optimistic heroine), I would run away and never contact my relatives again. They're not just constantly bickering the way normal families do, they even have a whole song about how much they hate one perfectly innocent family member they've chosen as a bullying target. (And - in true Miranda style - that content disaster, 'We don't talk about Bruno', is from a musical standpoint the best song in the film... Miranda really seems to like the awkward themes. Don't feel too sorry for that guy Bruno, either: while he's not a villain, he has the problem-solving skills of a toddler. Seriously, WTF?) While watching that family disaster unfold, I found myself wishing they'd all die in a house fire - while knowing that, of course, that wouldn't happen - it's Disney, after all.
Oh, but the music? It's great!
Seriously, go and listen to 'We don't talk about Bruno'. (At least if you're not triggered by toxic family situations. LOL) Even better: go and watch the animated sequence with the song. It's easily one of the best Disney songs of all times. All the singers (portraying multiple members of a large family) are not only very good (which is to be expected: again, it's Disney!) but also fit their roles perfectly. The song arrangement is brilliant, too: based on something like a cha-cha, it switches through several different musical styles, and, in the end, blends them all. It's great, and this song has been stuck in my head for days now! (Insta-earworm...)
So, can I recommend this film? Yes and no. Yes, if you don't care about the story either way and you're just there for the music. No, if you don't want to dive into the life of an incredibly toxic family. I will not recommend it to kids whose family situation I'm not 100% sure of, because otherwise, watching that thing without therapeutic processing is potentially harmful. And, I mean, I know kids, I know how resilient they can be, and that they usually can cope with media that adults don't typically trust them with - but this one? Heck, I wouldn't recommend the film to adults with any kind of family trauma, either...
But the music is really really really awesome. Thanks, Lin-Manuel Miranda.
The good part: I watch Disney movies mainly for the soundtracks anyway, and, WOW, Lin-Manuel Miranda delivers!
The bad part... Uh. I have this kind of hate-love for Lin-Manuel Miranda. He's clearly one of the best songwriters out there - really - but... He consistently ends up working on projects I hate. Whether that's super-weird political propaganda stuff ('Hamilton': questionable content with really catchy songs) or cringey Disneyfications of Polynesian religion ('Moana', and yes, it's really just as awful as the concept sounds - but with, again, really nice music... 'We know the way' and 'How far I'll go' are two of my favorite Disney songs, but I will say that film never should have been made), Miranda seems to have this special talent to immerse himself in seriously awkward shows. Still, I had hopes for 'Encanto': it's a story about a Colombian family with magical powers, and everyone lives together in a magical house. Basically, hearing the summary, I expected bland but somewhat entertaining kitsch in the narrative style of 'Frozen'. Not much that can go wrong there, right?!?
Um.
I'm not going to go into the treatment of Colombian culture here: I don't know anything about Colombia, I've never been there. It's obviously a Disneyfied view of that culture, with happy villagers who are dancing to folk tunes all the time - but, I mean, it's Disney, they do that with everything, and whether you want to call it racist or just accept it as a weird stylistic quirk is entirely up to you. XD Anyway - that's not my main problem with this film. (It's nowhere near as bad as 'Moana', anyway: at least it stays away from religion.)
My actual problem? I hated everyone.
Really. Every. Single. Character. Who the hell wrote this story? I mean - it's supposed to be a family story, and I'm sure the makers intended it to be this uplifting story about a girl working hard to understand her family members and bring them closer together with the powers of empathy and hope, yadda, yadda... But, seriously? That whole family is toxic as f*ck. I'll just say, if I were Mirabel (the annoyingly cheerful and optimistic heroine), I would run away and never contact my relatives again. They're not just constantly bickering the way normal families do, they even have a whole song about how much they hate one perfectly innocent family member they've chosen as a bullying target. (And - in true Miranda style - that content disaster, 'We don't talk about Bruno', is from a musical standpoint the best song in the film... Miranda really seems to like the awkward themes. Don't feel too sorry for that guy Bruno, either: while he's not a villain, he has the problem-solving skills of a toddler. Seriously, WTF?) While watching that family disaster unfold, I found myself wishing they'd all die in a house fire - while knowing that, of course, that wouldn't happen - it's Disney, after all.
Oh, but the music? It's great!
Seriously, go and listen to 'We don't talk about Bruno'. (At least if you're not triggered by toxic family situations. LOL) Even better: go and watch the animated sequence with the song. It's easily one of the best Disney songs of all times. All the singers (portraying multiple members of a large family) are not only very good (which is to be expected: again, it's Disney!) but also fit their roles perfectly. The song arrangement is brilliant, too: based on something like a cha-cha, it switches through several different musical styles, and, in the end, blends them all. It's great, and this song has been stuck in my head for days now! (Insta-earworm...)
So, can I recommend this film? Yes and no. Yes, if you don't care about the story either way and you're just there for the music. No, if you don't want to dive into the life of an incredibly toxic family. I will not recommend it to kids whose family situation I'm not 100% sure of, because otherwise, watching that thing without therapeutic processing is potentially harmful. And, I mean, I know kids, I know how resilient they can be, and that they usually can cope with media that adults don't typically trust them with - but this one? Heck, I wouldn't recommend the film to adults with any kind of family trauma, either...
But the music is really really really awesome. Thanks, Lin-Manuel Miranda.
