Encanto | Review
Encanto is the 60th film from Walt Disney Animation Studios, a huge milestone, but more impressive is the studio’s ability to pump out consistently entertaining and quality films that don’t feel lazy or cheap. The film continues the studios’s streak of subverting the Disney formula by avoiding a mustache-twirling villain and focusing on more ambitious themes. It doesn’t completely work, but it’s still worth watching.
The film follows Mirabel Madrigal (voiced by Stephanie Beatriz of Brooklyn Nine-Nine), a young woman living in a hidden village in the mountains of Columbia with her extended family. They include her Abuela Alma (Maria Cecilia Botero), who carries with her an enchanted candle that blessed the family with magical powers; her mother Julieta (Angie Cepeda), who can heal people with her food, and father Agustín (Wilmer Valderrama); sisters Isabela (Diane Guerrero), perfect in every way and who can make flowers appear out of nowhere, and Luisa (Jessica Darrow), who has the strength to lift houses; aunt Pepa (Carolina Gaitán), whose emotions affect the weather, and uncle Félix (Mauro Castillo); cousins Dolores (Adassa), who has supersonic hearing, Camilo (Rhenzy Feliz), who can shapeshift, and Antonio (Ravi-Cabot Conyers), who’s about to have his own ceremony to discover what power he’ll be gifted. Mirabel, unfortunately, is the only powerless family member, a shame she desperately tries to hide.
Encanto is the only Disney animated feature I can think of that centers around an extended family, a multigenerational household. The family members have a diverse range of skin tones and body shapes and sizes (gone are the days of skinny white princesses who all have the same face). They all have different personalities and relationships with one another, some are best friends, others can’t stand each other, like a real family! And like a real family, they have a dark secret—they have an estranged family member, Uncle Bruno, they no longer talk to nor talk about, almost like it’s taboo. It reminded me of my own family.
I have a big extended family (on my mom’s side) that I’m close to. My mom has over ten siblings, and each one has their own sets of kids, and those kids have their own kids. It’s a blessing we celebrate every year at our annual family reunions. Growing up, I always thought my family was perfect. But as I got older, I started realizing the flaws, drama, and issues that any family can relate to. Despite how close the family is, we still have estranged family members we never talk about, whether out of shame or guilt.
And, like my family, Mirabel is a child of refugees. In a standout scene, we learn Abuela escaped persecution with her husband when they were a young married couple. When her husband died during their escape, a miracle appeared in the form of the magical candle. Abuela made the ultimate sacrifice for a better life, like all refugees, which makes it hard for her children or grandchildren to voice their personal issues or deviate from their sense of duty to the family. Even the fact that Mirabel’s mother can heal through her cooking is something any child of refugees/immigrants will recognize. Again, it’s all so relatable, and I appreciate that the film tries to tackle such sensitive topics.
But representation can only get you so far, and, unfortunately, the film’s story feels like it could’ve used a couple more drafts. While I was impressed the film stayed entirely within the confines of Mirabel’s house and village (nicely subverting the rousing adventure advertised in the trailers), the entire picture felt underwhelming. The estranged relationship between Uncle Bruno and the family doesn’t hit like you’d expect from a Disney film. The issues the individual family members have are solved as quickly as they’re introduced (in song form). Perhaps trying to flesh out 12 whole characters was too ambitious for its own good. Interesting ideas are touched upon, but never given depth.
Most surprising of all, the songs from Lin-Manuel Miranda just aren’t that memorable (with three other films he’s worked on this year alone, this man just doesn’t sleep does he?). My favorite songs are “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” and “Dos Oruguitas,” but everything else is forgettable, never matching the catchy and creative heights of his work on Hamilton or Moana. While Stephanie Beatriz is a good fit for Mirabel, her singing voice is lacking, which you can tell immediately in the opening track (someone should tell Disney it’s okay to go back to the old days when they used to hire professional singers to do the singing voice while voice actors did everything else).
Directors Byron Howard (Tangled) and Jared Bush (Zootopia), together with writer Charise Castro Smith, have given us a beautifully animated, eye-popping, family film that respectfully showcases its Columbian setting. But the directors have also given us much better films in the past. Encanto might be missing the Disney magic, but it’s admirable in its attempts at trying something new and ambitious.