No studio puts magic on the big screen like Disney can. That’s a quality both to the company’s appeal and sometimes detriment, but if you’re looking for family-friendly magic full of warmth and excitement, look no further than Encanto.
Despite minimal fanfare, this is the studio illustrious 60th film in their canon of animated classics, placing this new musical fantasy in the company of greats like Beauty and the Beast (celebrating its anniversary earlier this week) and The Lion King.
While Encanto doesn’t have the same majesty and cohesiveness of the studio’s best work, it’s still a thoroughly enjoyable musical epic. It’s also among their most vivacious and whimsical movies, making it a lot of fun to watch.
Set some time ago in Colombia, the family Madrigal lives in a magical house that grants each member of the family a unique ability when they come of age. That is, except Mirabel (Stephanie Beatriz), the only one who doesn’t - and now it’s up to her to fix the instability and weird things suddenly happening to the family casita.
Encanto is trying to be a lot of things all at once. The film is a family drama, an animated fantasy and also a musical comedy. It succeeds at being all of these, embodying the best parts of each genre, but rarely does it make sense being all of them at the same time. That’s where you’ll start to see cracks in the house’s foundation. (That pun is funnier after seeing the movie - trust me.)
Veteran Disney director Byron Howard, who’s spent five years as a leader on this project, is behind two of the company’s biggest hits this century: 2010’s Tangled (his credential for musical fantasy) and 2016’s Zootopia (his credential for comedy and big action sequences.)
Yet his previous works stand on clear, confident story beats focused on just a few main characters, whereas the Madrigal story has a large ensemble and a break-neck pace that rarely stops to breathe.
Only Mirabel gets serious screen time, and the question of her missing gift isn’t directly resolved at the end, making it potentially hard for younger viewers to understand the nuance in Mirabel’s “gift” in the final moments. Even so, the rich screenplay is well-shot and designed to create a clearly detailed and thorough movie.
Lin-Manuel Miranda returns as songwriter after his work on Moana, and again his songs are both fun to listen to and too hard for kids to sing along to. It’s also odd how he chose which moments to musicalize, including how side characters like Luisa and Isabella get solo numbers while larger characters like Abuela and Bruno don’t.
Miranda’s done good work on the catchy and story-driven tunes, but the standout is Germaine Franco’s score that fills the rest of the story. His music truly brings Colombia and the casita Madrigal to life. (He also did the score of 2017’s Coco, another animated family adventure set in Central America.)
A quick thing Miranda does really well is the finale song "All of You", sung by the ensemble. Not only is it the best song in the movie, it also makes for a home run ending scene. Disney musicals have a bad habit of not using a song for its finale, but this is a home run with a great message. As Abuela sings, "the miracle is you. Just you."
Like Zootopia, the story of Encanto doesn’t tip its hat too early, and the true moral of the story only becomes clear after a satisfying twist near the end. The payoff isn’t as creative or shocking as some of Disney’s best, but like the climax of their earlier work his year Raya and the Last Dragon, it is emotionally satisfying.
This new Colombian comedy is a very good movie from a studio celebrating its catalogue with some of the best animated musicals in history. That’s too high praise for Encanto, but maybe that’s too high a bar for it to meet.
Encanto
8 out of 10
G. 1hr 39mins. Animated Family Fantasy Musical.
Directed by Byron Howard and Jared Bush.
Starring Stephanie Beatriz, María Cecilia Botero, John Leguizamo, Diane Guerrero, Jessica Darrow and Angie Cepeda.
Now Playing Cineplex Winston Churchill and Cineplex Oakville & VIP. Opens Friday, Nov. 26 at Film.Ca Cinemas and the 5 Drive-In.
