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LTTP: Encanto. Uh this is the best Disney movie in 20 years?
- Thread starter Mezentine
- Start date
It gets much better after the first 10 minutes, but I agree the first part is weak. Stick around for the part where Mirabella helps the kid open the door and it might win you over.
I was in the room when it was on and would glance up occasionally but I was simultaneously highly annoyed and extremely bored by it. And I typically love most Disney movies.
I figured it was a "Doctor Strange in Infinity War" situation where the magic realized it was going to fail due to the family breaking apart and the only person who could fix it was Mirabel, and only if she had no powers and suffered due to it. The next child got powers because Mirabel was already at the point where she could save things, so robbing him of powers would solve nothing.
I think that was the trouble for me. The movie at the end seems to be suggesting that the problem was the family matriarch putting too much emphasis on the gifts, but then it's like... how could she not? When you randomly give people life-changing superpowers, yeah, they're going to make a big deal of that. If the magic hadn't wanted that, why not stop at creating the refuge and the magic house? Half of the characters powers aren't terribly practical anyway.
And the fact that it's never explained why Mirabel didn't get a gift also kinda sucked for me. The magic is characterised as this wonderful, benevolent force, and yet it landed this entirely innocent girl in a situation where she'd inevitably grow up feeling inferior to everyone around her. Then it made her watch while her little cousin got to ride a tiger he can talk to through his brand new magical forest playground.
This all makes me sound like I hated it, but I absolutely didn't. Just wish the storytelling was a bit tighter.
That kinda tracks if you assume the magic has the aforementioned Dr Strange-style "I've seen every possible path and this is the only way" type foresight.
The concept of LTTP has lost all meaning. It's not that confusing lmao.
It's a fine movie, but it's completely outdone by like a half dozen WDAS movies in the last 20 years.
Lilo and Stitch
Princess and the Frog
Tangled
Wreck-it Ralph
Big Hero 6
Zootopia
Moana
I don't even like Frozen that much but I think it's better.
It's a fine movie, but it's completely outdone by like a half dozen WDAS movies in the last 20 years.
Lilo and Stitch
Princess and the Frog
Tangled
Wreck-it Ralph
Big Hero 6
Zootopia
Moana
I don't even like Frozen that much but I think it's better.
I did feel that Zootopia's racism allegory was pretty paper thin, but I loved the world and characters. The way Judy and Nick play off of each other as a buddy cop duo was executed very strongly.
I just want to see more of that world and I'm really looking forward to Zootopia+.
Mirabel is the next matriarch of the family. Notice how Abuela Alma and Mirabel are the only characters that can communicate and understand Casita in the whole family?
Her gift is being the glue that keeps the family together.
She's the new foundation and the next conductor of the Madrigal family. Her door is the front door of Casita because she will be the one to lead the family when Alma passes.
Her gift is being the glue that keeps the family together.
She's the new foundation and the next conductor of the Madrigal family. Her door is the front door of Casita because she will be the one to lead the family when Alma passes.
OP
OP
I mean, they're perhaps the only ones shown doing it, but they're also given a lot more screentime than probably anyone else in the family. Luisa, for example, gets her biggest scene outside the house. We really don't get to see much of how the other characters live.
It's a nice read, but I'm not sure it's one that the movie really attempts to communicate to the viewer. Or if it does, it doesn't do it terribly well IMO.
I hadn't thought of that and it's a really cool idea. The only issue would be that one of the second generation women would be the actual matriarch first, though she can still be the defacto leader and glue regardless.
OP
OP
The damage in the family runs way deeper than just Abuela's problems, although a lot of it is certainly rooted with her. Notice how Mirabel's song about how badly she's hurting is kicked off by a moment in which her entire family forgets, for just one split second, that she belongs with them. Of course any one of them would probably apologize profusely if they were called on it, but in the moment they're all sweeping together for that photograph no-one notices Mirabel is missing
I love Moana, Zootopia, and Tangled, but I could totally see Encanto being a dark horse pick for best modern Disney Animation film, if not the best in like the last 20 years like OP states.
It's got beautiful animation, got some great and memorable songs, and despite it's popularity seeming to come more after going on streaming, while most Disney films are regarded as hits out of the gate, the popularity of Bruno shows it has the iconic staying power of "Let it Go".
For me though, it's themes of family, intergenerational trauma, and the roles one plays in their family are aspects that feel so fresh and nuanced.
It's got beautiful animation, got some great and memorable songs, and despite it's popularity seeming to come more after going on streaming, while most Disney films are regarded as hits out of the gate, the popularity of Bruno shows it has the iconic staying power of "Let it Go".
For me though, it's themes of family, intergenerational trauma, and the roles one plays in their family are aspects that feel so fresh and nuanced.
I believe that was done intentionally as to not give it away too early. We see Casita interact with the other family members, but never do they try to talk to it. Despite the house being alive, most of the family members are sort of detached from it, if that makes sense.
It probably could have been conveyed more obviously, but I don't think it needed to be. Once the magic returns when the family works to build a new foundation not built on trauma and Mirabel is given the honor of putting the knob on the door, it became pretty clear to me.
I think it might be because the triplets were already born when the miracle happened.
Moana is my fave Disney movie of the last few years, for sure. Thought it had a sweeter message, better music, and visuals that were more up my alley. It's a shame Moana's soundtrack didn't hit like Frozen or Encanto, "How Far I'll Go" is a better song than either of those two have.
I'm usually pretty into their stuff but this one actually fell pretty flat for me. Theres some good songs in there but it kinda felt like it never really started and they it was all over so fast too.
But personally I'm kinda more into ones with a bit of a sense kf adventure and the film Is pretty isolated in its environment due to the story. I didn't like it anywhere near as much as Moana or Tangled personally
But personally I'm kinda more into ones with a bit of a sense kf adventure and the film Is pretty isolated in its environment due to the story. I didn't like it anywhere near as much as Moana or Tangled personally
It's Moana for sure but Encanto was also great - grandma is like the fuckin worst tho lol
Bruno's the greatest
Bruno's the greatest
I took it as Mirabel still receiving a gift of being a person who can still push past the uncomfortable family dynamics that people don't want to acknowledge to empathetically see the pain and struggle that people have underneath that drives her to want to fix the family and bring everyone together, even when everyone in the family believes that prying will only cause things to get worse, and blames her for rocking the boat.
All their powers are pretty metaphorical about not just their personality or ability or interests, but also what it can add to their family, and in the case of Isabella and Luisa, we see how those powers become expectations on how they are supposed to behave and help the family. In the case of Bruno, his power is seen as a burden and the most literal expression of suppressing the bad or unwanted thoughts as if things will be better if the don't talk about Bruno or the shame of his shunning from the family or all the predictions he made that were true but unpleasant, so it seemed like he was just inviting negative consequences.
Mirabel's role in the story and the family was in learning more about Bruno, she learned about all the unspoken pain their family held and how her relationship with Abuela (and Abuela's relationship with Bruno) was directly related to her trying to run from and shield her family from the pain of her past. At least that is my interpretation of it (I've only seen the movie once), but I do think Abuela says something to Mirabel like how Mirabel is her gift, and she was the one who was able to heal the family by being able to tear down the (literal) walls that divided them.
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Incredible movie in every respect from animation to emotion to setting to music. It's become my favorite Disney movie of the last few decades as well, if not ever. Every song is frankly amazingly; not just catchy, but musically and semantically layered.
The cracks first manifest when Mirabel, feeling particularly stranged when Antonio does get his gift (making her the sole "pariah" in the family), leaves the family celebration (during her musical number). They disappear right after as her attention shifts back to warning her family. It's not just her, though; she's just the only one outwardly expressing her suffering. The cracks are also more numerous in the spaces Bruno is inhabiting due to him being the one suffering the most. Every time we see cracks forming in the movie, they're a result of unhappiness or contempt between family members; conversely, they heal when family members make amends or become happier as a result of being truer to themselves.
When Mirabel questions why embracing Isabella would help at all, Bruno mentions (almost off-handedly) that it's because Casita's own existence is fuelled by familial bonds and love. Casita was created out of Abuela's desire to protect her three children; but as Abuela herself admits towards the end, her obsession with making everything perfect caused her to hurt her children in other ways and become estranged towards her, in turn causing the cracks.
Mirabel's role in the whole story is to question the state of things. Unlike every other person in the family that silently accepts their situation, she's not content with leading an unhappy life and is the only one with the guts to challenge Abuela and tell her to her face what she's doing. The thing is that Abuela is genuinely a good person; it's just that her judgement was never questioned before, so she never had that moment of introspection. When Mirabel finally tells her off, she has an immediate villain realization and completely changes her demeanor. A lot of people are being undeservedly unsympathetic towards her, and entirely missing the whole point of the movie.
1) Mirabel's "gift" is Abuela's; she's meant to inherit her role as the central matriarch of the family, succeeding her. She does heal and reunite the whole family during the movie, and her "door" at the end is Casita's front door (the one with the "M"-engraved doorknob), which has her at the center surrounded by the rest of the family.
2) Casita intentionally didn't give her a gift to challenge Abuela's reliance on gifts and dismissal of the people bearing them. Note that Mirabel not having a gift is pivotal to her shaking up the family dynamics that ultimately results in much-needed healing. Granted, if this is the case, Casita is either pretty great at 4D chess, or has future sight... which given Bruno's own gift, may not be that far-fetched.
Edit: I wrote interpretation 1) before reading the other similar interpretations in the thread, so that's probably a data point in favor of the movie communicating this notion well enough if several of us got that. But as Imperial Bishop points out, well... it's magic realism; it's really not necessary for everything to be exhaustively explained, and part of the appeal is the potential personal interpretations.
The theme of the movie is intergenerational conflict and trauma. Abuela's trauma at losing almost everything when she was a young woman, and being saved only due to a literal miracle, left her overprotective and obsessed with preserving the encanto by proving to be worthy of it. This perfectionist and demanding attitude smothered the rest of the family to a greater or lesser degree, especially Bruno, Luisa and Isabella (because of their gifts) and Mirabel (for her lack thereof), leading to obviously unhappy lives for all four of them. It's implied that Pepa is also affected which is why she easily spirals into self-reinforcing cycles of bad mood and bad weather (she snaps back at Abuela when the latter chastises her for a cloud at one point in the movie).
The cracks first manifest when Mirabel, feeling particularly stranged when Antonio does get his gift (making her the sole "pariah" in the family), leaves the family celebration (during her musical number). They disappear right after as her attention shifts back to warning her family. It's not just her, though; she's just the only one outwardly expressing her suffering. The cracks are also more numerous in the spaces Bruno is inhabiting due to him being the one suffering the most. Every time we see cracks forming in the movie, they're a result of unhappiness or contempt between family members; conversely, they heal when family members make amends or become happier as a result of being truer to themselves.
When Mirabel questions why embracing Isabella would help at all, Bruno mentions (almost off-handedly) that it's because Casita's own existence is fuelled by familial bonds and love. Casita was created out of Abuela's desire to protect her three children; but as Abuela herself admits towards the end, her obsession with making everything perfect caused her to hurt her children in other ways and become estranged towards her, in turn causing the cracks.
Mirabel's role in the whole story is to question the state of things. Unlike every other person in the family that silently accepts their situation, she's not content with leading an unhappy life and is the only one with the guts to challenge Abuela and tell her to her face what she's doing. The thing is that Abuela is genuinely a good person; it's just that her judgement was never questioned before, so she never had that moment of introspection. When Mirabel finally tells her off, she has an immediate villain realization and completely changes her demeanor. A lot of people are being undeservedly unsympathetic towards her, and entirely missing the whole point of the movie.
I have two interpretations about Mirabel's gift:
1) Mirabel's "gift" is Abuela's; she's meant to inherit her role as the central matriarch of the family, succeeding her. She does heal and reunite the whole family during the movie, and her "door" at the end is Casita's front door (the one with the "M"-engraved doorknob), which has her at the center surrounded by the rest of the family.
2) Casita intentionally didn't give her a gift to challenge Abuela's reliance on gifts and dismissal of the people bearing them. Note that Mirabel not having a gift is pivotal to her shaking up the family dynamics that ultimately results in much-needed healing. Granted, if this is the case, Casita is either pretty great at 4D chess, or has future sight... which given Bruno's own gift, may not be that far-fetched.
Edit: I wrote interpretation 1) before reading the other similar interpretations in the thread, so that's probably a data point in favor of the movie communicating this notion well enough if several of us got that. But as Imperial Bishop points out, well... it's magic realism; it's really not necessary for everything to be exhaustively explained, and part of the appeal is the potential personal interpretations.
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It's fine. It takes a while to get going and it has an interesting exploration of a troubled family dynamic, but I didn't super attach to it. It's very charming though.
With Disney pretty much being the whole movie industry these days, may as well call it the best movie these past twenty years.
I don't have a problem with that. There's a couple of movies I'd personally rank higher, but not miles better or anything. So, yeah, sure, best movie.
I don't have a problem with that. There's a couple of movies I'd personally rank higher, but not miles better or anything. So, yeah, sure, best movie.
It's a pretty weak movie, the only incredible thing of the movie is surely the Bruno song, it's a 3/10 movie with a 10/10 song.
It was decent. Liked 2 of the songs. Plot wasn't particularly memorable.
Coco is Pixar. If you're including that then its a hard no.
Coco is Pixar. If you're including that then its a hard no.
Thanks for these posts, I feel like I understand the movie a little better now.
They do however lead me to another conclusion, which is that the magic powers kinda muddy the message for me. So much of the early part of the movie is concerned with "I come from this magical family where everyone has magical powers! Here is exactly what everyone's power does, only I don't have a power and that makes me sad" that you could easily assume the movie was about that.
Really, the central theme of the movie (A woman tries so hard to maintain the "perfect" family that she doesn't realise she's suffocating and almost destroying the very thing she's trying to maintain) has nothing to do with magical powers, and I reckon you could cut them from the film entirely without having to change all that much. Their presence, while adding a lot of creativity and visual flair, establishes a mystery that the movie is barely interested in addressing.
Also, let's be honest; being the matriarch is a bullshit gift. That's literally the magical version of buying your wife a vacuum cleaner for her birthday.
There were certainly some good moments, such as the immaculately-engineered tear-inducing reconciliation moment between Maribel and Abuela, but I will echo many commenters's opinions that it felt underdeveloped and lacking overall.
I was especially disappointed and stricken at the end of the movie when the miracle returned. The whole long scene preceding it where the whole town helped to rebuild the now-mundane family's home was a perfect counter to Abuela's misguided worries. It showed that having people, community that you love and care for is the real treasure, and that you don't need magic miracles to protect that. And then BAM, magic family exceptionalism comes back and kills all of that. Felt so, so bad
Edit: before someone points out that they were literally saved from likely-spanish invaders by the miracle and therefore the miracle is needed, I'd say that just shows how muddled the movie feels
I was especially disappointed and stricken at the end of the movie when the miracle returned. The whole long scene preceding it where the whole town helped to rebuild the now-mundane family's home was a perfect counter to Abuela's misguided worries. It showed that having people, community that you love and care for is the real treasure, and that you don't need magic miracles to protect that. And then BAM, magic family exceptionalism comes back and kills all of that. Felt so, so bad
Edit: before someone points out that they were literally saved from likely-spanish invaders by the miracle and therefore the miracle is needed, I'd say that just shows how muddled the movie feels
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OP
OP
Yeah I really don't think the movie is trying to be that literal about the powers. Which isn't to say that they're pure metaphor either, the fact that the movie plays with that line is what makes it fun as both magical realism and as a musical. But the powers are really all aptitudes or talents (the two wildest ones, weather control and shapeshifting, don't really get used for anything like an X-men member would, they're not superpowers). They're outsized expressions of everyone's talent and personality, and its also about the pressures and fractures that can build up in that sort of environment of exceptionalism, especially if you're the daughter who isn't as obviously exceptional, even to the other people in the family
The movie captures something that I didn't even know I hadn't seen before: what it can be like to be part of a loving family who are dedicated to bringing out the best in each other, when the knowledge of what everyone is capable of turns into an implicitly and explicitly demanding atmosphere where people become afraid of not measuring up. Its the way that the movie recognizes that they can all genuinely love and care for each other and also still be hurting each other and those are simultaneously true more often than we might think.
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Great write up, but I disagree with this part. You're forgetting what she did to Bruno.
Wasn't Bruno's situation a case of self exile? She of course in a large part contributed to his final decision with the environment she created, but it was his choice in the end
Ye.
Especially the part where Abuela Alma gaslights Mirabel about her being the reason why Bruno left and then immediately turning around and saying Bruno didn't care about the family.
The way everyone speaks of him? Not much of a choice if you ask me. Abuela sucks.
Honestly it's not just her. The village also subscribes to the "shoot the messenger" mentality
I was disappointed. I just don't like Disney musicals. Tell the story normally and maybe I would have liked it but everytime they broke into a song I just groaned. And the songs are so long as well.
Now Luca on the other hand: masterpiece. (Yes I know it's Pixar but it has the better use of a Bruno).
Lmao last 20 years? No, not even close.
It's not even the best Disney film of the last 5 years.
This film's story is very superficial and disjointed. It's not a bad film by any means, but my god it's overrated. The one thing right we got out of all of this is that Dos Oruguitas was nominated for an academy award since that song is actually great, unlike the Bruno one.
It's not even the best Disney film of the last 5 years.
This film's story is very superficial and disjointed. It's not a bad film by any means, but my god it's overrated. The one thing right we got out of all of this is that Dos Oruguitas was nominated for an academy award since that song is actually great, unlike the Bruno one.