movies: encanto

Well... Encanto...

This was a movie I... didn't see coming. I mean, I knew that it was a movie and I knew that it was coming out, and I'd heard good things. But I had no idea what the hell this movie was. Because I don't do trailers anymore, and I prefer going into a movie knowing nothing about it.

And thus, we have situations like Encanto. Where knowing nothing about a movie let's it hit me like a ten-ton truck.

If you haven't seen anything about the movie, but generally like Disney movies, I'd say, go and see it.

Encanto is another Disney movie in an developing list that takes on a different culture and sets it's story deep within that culture. See also Raya and Moana. 

But this feels more successful than either of those, even though I liked Moana very much. And like Moana, this movie has a number of Lin-Manuel Miranda songs throughout, but more on that later.

At it's core though, Encanto is the story of a family. And what that means, both for good and for bad. It's a very special extended family with a set of gifts, but a family none-the-less. The interesting part comes in because it's a Latinx family, who live in a wonderful house, in a non-specific timeframe, in an isolated rural village location in Columbia. It's also great that the movie's cast is predominantly Latinx and a number of them also reprised their roles in the Spanish language dub of the movie, which is nice.

But maybe 90% of the movie takes place in, or very close to that house. They also manage to give the house something of a personality or at least set it apart from other... magical buildings. Plus there are only a handful of other characters with speaking roles or who affect the plot in any significant way.

The movie is visually... lush. There honestly isn't any other word for how beautiful this movie looks. I know that's generally my go-to description of any new Disney animated movie, but this one is set in a colourful house in a jungle location with flowers and bright costumes and magic and colours everywhere.

The movement of the characters, especially when people move to the music without seemingly meaning to or just dance, are beautiful. They're fluid and have weight and feel real. 

It also has some great songs, one of which, "Surface Pressure" is my favourite of the movie, and something of an earworm that has been bouncing around in my head since... well, not since last night, because I watched it again this morning, but it's certainly catchy.

However... here we get to one of a couple of very minor complaints that I have about the movie.

The first of which is that Lin-Manuel Miranda is amazing at writing songs that move the story along and that focus on character and emotion and what's happening in the scene. What I feel like he's pretty bad at is writing a song you can sing along to. 

None of these songs are "Be Our Guest" or "Never Had A Friend Like Me" or "Under the Sea" or "Hakuna Matata".... and not a single one of them are "I'll Make A Man Out Of You". These are lyrically dense songs that work within the confines of the movie, but I very much doubt will endure or find a life outside of the movie.

And as much as I loved the Moana soundtrack (I bought it on CD after all), there are at least a couple of songs on there that are more generically Disney songs (specifically "How Far I'll Go")... this feels like they just let him go full Lin-Manuel. Which is great, but, like I said, these songs won't endure. Or show up as karaoke songs in ten years times or be a thing you randomly quote if somebody happens to accidentally say a line from.

The other complaint is something of a... "good problem to have" I guess. I like a lot of the characters, both visually and for their part in the story... but... there may be too many of them. Because there are character who don't get enough screen time or don't get fleshed out in any significant way. And I really wish they did. 

It's better than having too few characters who don't get fleshed out, but it's still a problem. There needed to be a lot of characters to get an authentic extended family feel, I get that... but at the same time some of the characters don't get much of a personality beyond the singular character traits outlined for them in the opening number of the movie. Too much of a good thing maybe.

It feels like they came up with some great ideas for individual gifts but were loathe to lose any.

Also... beyond being nice... I'm not completely sure that our main character has a full personality. It works within the context of the movie, because we get enough about her for you to go along with her for the movie and what she has to do within it... but beyond "nice" and "the main character", her personality seems to be "wants to fix the thing that is wrong". And yes, the thing everyone wants to point out is that she's the first female protagonist in a Disney movie who wears glasses. Which is... great, I guess, but it's still not a personality. 

I really like her, don't get me wrong. But I'm damned if I can actually come up with a personality trait for her beyond "protagonist". She loves her family and she works out what's wrong at the end of the movie and why, but only because she's following a completely different plot thread and kind of stumbles on the answer by accident.

Which is fine and good and adequate for a family movie. But, on reflection, a lot of the characters are fairly thinly realised.

Like I said though, it still works for me.

I also knew where the plot was (mostly) going, from early on, but I enjoyed the journey of getting there. And it made me cry at the end. Which is really where the ten-ton truck comes in. Maybe a train is a better analogy... I saw it coming on the tracks, I didn't want to get out of the way, and it ran completely over me.

yani's rating: 4 butterflies out of 5