Just in time for the holidays, Disney has kicked out a fun
film to escape to the theaters for. If,
like me, you enjoy Disney, Frozen is sure to please. It’s a story of magic and threat, love and
yearning, goofy characters and villains.
And it’s a musical with songs that sound like they were recorded on
Broadway. And, more innovative for
Disney, it’s got lots of visual interest.
Everything the film is about is wrapped up in the two
sisters, Elsa and Anna. The older Elsa
is gifted with dangerous ice magic, and she shuts everyone out, including Anna,
in an effort to hide and control it.
Anna, meanwhile, wants to be social and loving, and she longs for company and for the
childhood relationship she had with her older sister before Elsa chose to go
into isolation. Anna must get through
Elsa’s distrust and distance to save Arendell, and Elsa ultimately learns that
the solution to her problems (and the kingdom’s) isn’t withdrawal into solitude
but accepting and trusting her sister.
The story is a worthwhile take on the Disney princess tale since it’s
girl-rescuing-girl (and kingdom) while the heroines are growing up at the same time. And in the focus on women, Frozen has a distinct
echo of Brave, though the two films look at different aspects of girls’
development.
Even with the focus on women, the guys don’t come off
irrelevant or bad here. Social Anna falls in
love with Hans the day of Elsa’s coronation, and the couple has a fun musical
number, “Love Is an Open Door,” with in-your-face, over-the-top fantasy and cinema
cliché. And then there’s the sudden
dramatic reversal centered around Hans that becomes important at the end of the
film. The amiable, rougher Kristoff has an important
role, too, as a capable assistant who also contributes comic relief; plot-wise,
he becomes an unexpected red herring as the story reaches its climax. Although Frozen is about the girls, the boys
have a lot to do here.
In addition to the way the film plays with expectations, Frozen is
the first Disney animation in a while that has so solidly embraced its
music. The lyrically-edited opening
song, “Frozen Heart,” sets the tone, mood and theme of the whole movie, and
Else’s “Let It Go” endorses individuality in such moving terms that you feel
she’s made the right decision in building her ice castle in the mountains. There are awfully funny songs, too. The naïve snowman’s ode “In Summer” gets a
lot of laughs from the central paradox that the poor man would melt while enjoying
his beach. Likewise, the witty lyrics and onscreen antics by the trolls make “Fixer
Upper” funny. More than most
recent Disney films, Frozen exploits its song to add to the pleasure of
the film.
And the visuals make the film involving. Frozen uses a range of palettes that keep the
screen changing from white to brown to blue to orange, and the images certainly
engage. Else’s castle is striking to
look at, and landscapes of ice-bejeweled willow branches or windblown snow in
howling winds add to the visual interest.
But a lot of the pleasure in the visuals concern movement and
editing. Wolves chase the sleigh of Anna
and Kristoff, a snow monster runs them away from Elsa’s castle, and things freeze
up and change color. Editing, too, makes
the film fun to watch. Song montages follow
choreographed movement or sequences of images associated with the lyrics. In Frozen, there is almost always something interesting
to look at.
In fact, it’s the strong visuals that carry the film because
the story has a few problems. Perhaps it’s
not fair to ask for too much story in a Disney Christmas movie, but all the dilatory
moments -- whether fast-paced action, musical interludes or just dialog -- aren't
a substitute for dramatic engagement, and Frozen has an episodic quality that at
times leaves you feeling like it’s not going anywhere. For example, there’s a lot of thematic and
plot buildup to Anna's visit to Else's ice castle, but then nothing comes of the encounter
between the two. Also, although
the characters are generally winning and sympathetic, they lack the complexity
of characters like Carl in Up, Merida in Brave or even Remy in Ratatouille. Frozen’s characters are mostly mono-dimensional,
embodying a certain quality or idea but lacking personality. This shallowness is most obvious when Hans makes
a radical shift from one quality to another with no motivation or groundwork
laid for the transformation.
But these reservations aside, Frozen is still fun for what it is -- a couple of hours of classic Disney.
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