Melting cliches away
This icy treat from disney manages to warm the heart with its unusual approach.
THERE are many reasons to warm up to Frozen, Disney’s latest animated film, but the hottest thing about it is its bold approach to the cliched princess storylines that the studio itself is guilty of perpetuating.
Featuring not one but two princesses, this cool new (VERY loosely based) adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen could well have become the ultimate reheated tale of romantic yearnings – in fact, the posters for the film, featuring the princesses Elsa and Anna, prince Hans and the mountain man Kristoff, suggest exactly that.
It is a delightful surprise, then, to discover that Frozen is less a tale about finding true love, and more one about the love between two sisters, not to mention learning to love yourself.
Granted, it may not seem like much, but taken in the context of just how deeply ingrained the idea of fairy-tale true love has become thanks to the House of Mouse, it feels like a big step in a positive new direction.
What’s more, coming in the wake of Tangled (2010) and WreckIt Ralph (2012), each of which upended Disney norms in its own way, Frozen seems to signal a more contemporary and even experimental stage for the animation powerhouse.
Sisters Elsa and Anna are princesses of Arendelle, and are as close as can be. Elsa isn’t just your average little girl; born with snow magic, she has the power to create snow and ice with her hands. The girls’ happy childhood is shattered one day, however, when Elsa accidentally injures Anna with her power.
Convinced that her magic is influenced by her emotions, their parents teach Elsa to keep her feelings tightly in check, to distance herself from Anna to avoid further accidents, and to keep her power a secret.
The years pass and both Elsa (voiced by Idina Menzel) and Anna (Kristen Bell) grow up to be young women – Elsa isolated and terrified of her own powers, Anna lonely and longing for a connection with someone.
An unexpected conflict between the two causes Elsa to lose control and bring a perpetual winter down on Arendelle. Horrified by her actions, and with everyone in the land calling her a monster, Elsa runs away to the mountains.
Determined to clear her sister’s name, Anna goes after Elsa, part-
Chris buck and Jennifer Lee
Kristen bell, Idina menzel, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad and Santino Fontana nering up with Kristoff (Jonathan Groff), his reindeer Sven and Olaf (Josh Gad), an adorable snowman brought to life by Elsa’s magic.
This being Disney, you’d expect plenty of eye candy, and Frozen soars beyond those expectations. The animation of the film’s winter wonderlands, from majestic spectacles to minute details – Elsa’s stunning ice castle, powdery-soft snow shifting underfoot, gorgeous glinting ice crystals, floaty sparkling snowflakes – is simply breathtaking, and too beautiful to describe.
In classic Disney tradition, there are also the funny sidekicks, and with Olaf, they may just have struck upon the most lovable one of them all. The guileless snowman, with his love of summer and hilariously innocent pronouncements, is one of the movie’s highlights.
The movie is not without its flaws. The pacing feels a little rushed, and it would have been nice to see more character devel- opment; as likeable as Elsa and Anna are, they are no Belle or Ariel. More time spent on Elsa’s sense of isolation and later, her time in the mountains, for instance, may have helped us connect with her better. Similarly, Kristoff is fun enough, but is unlikely to cause any Prince Ericor even Flynn Rider-like swooning.
And for a film that is expressly designed as a musical – dialogue in many portions is sung, and Broadway duo Bobby Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez were brought onboard as songwriters – Frozen’s songs are quite forgettable, with a more pop-ish feel than the grand numbers you usually expect from Disney.
The exception is Let It Go, a brilliant song that owes much to Menzel’s powerhouse vocals, and is sung in one of the movie’s most beautiful and uplifting sequences in which Elsa finally lets her emotions out and uses her powers to build herself an ice castle.
These issues, however, are not big enough to cool your enthusiasm for Frozen, particularly after a thrilling second half that upends everything you think you know about it. And as the movie ends on what is probably the most female-empowering note of any Disney offering thus far, it is indeed difficult not to melt at least a little.