Unfortunately, any parent can tell you that once your kid likes a certain movie, you're gonna see it a lot, and my son really likes 2 movies that I've seen a lot. So I figured I'd write a bit about them since I've seen each probably 100 times more than a typical movie reviewer.
Encanto
Characters
The protaganist of this movie is a frumpy girl with a big nose. This is plot relevant because she sticks her nose in everyone else's business. She has no magical powers other than the power of autism
Abuela is the elder matriarch of the family. I don't know exactly what her magical powers are, she doesn't explicitly show anything but we'll get to that.
She has a fair skinned aunt whose mood affects the weather. Her husband is a simp.
She has an uncle named Bruno. We're gonna talk about Bruno, don't you worry.
Her mom is probably the most reasonable and normal person in the entire family. Her power is her cooking is a cureall, immediately heals all injuries. Her husband acts weak and his entire contribution to the film seems to be one scene where he makes a funny face and another scene where he goes "I'm worried about MY DAUGHTER"
She has a younger male cousin who is just coming of age, his power will be talking to animals.
She has a slightly older male cousin whose power is shape shifting. This guy is basically a Checkov's Gun that goes entirely unfired. He appears in scenes, but other than comic relief his entire character could be removed and nothing of value would be lost.
He has a female cousin about the same age whose power is extreme hearing.
She has two sisters, one is a brute with super strength, the other is a princess who can make flowers appear and works really hard to appear perfect.
Main Plot:
The movie starts with a retelling of the story from Abeula fleeing the war and gaining a magical miracle. They have a candle that never goes out, and an enchanted land that has terrain that keeps out invaders, and a magical house that is alive.
Next there's a musical number explaining all the family members. One thing that's really notable in these pieces is whereas in some films there's continuity in musical numbers to a degree, it really doesn't look like it here. People show up in numbers to do something or sing something then minutes later act like they had no idea the musical number happened. Doesn't really matter, but it's noteworthy for people who are vainly trying to follow the narrative. The number is also an attempt by frumpy to deflect from questions from the kids of the village about what her magical gift is. At the end of the number, abuela is wondering what the hell she's doing and the younger cousin tells the kids she has no magical gift. One of the villagers comes over with a big basket and makes a big deal of her not having a gift.
They're preparing for the gift granting ceremony for the youngest.
She goes into the house and her aunt is causing rainstorms and her simp husband is trying to calm her down. Princess Sister comes down on a swing made of rose vines and gives everyone flowers, and snipes verbally at frumpy who then storms into the kitchen.
We see her mom and dad. (Her dad is covered in bee stings which we saw in the musical but not other stuff from the musical... It's just a show, don't think too hard about it). Her mom makes him a small piece of food to cure the bee stings. Her dad tries to talk to her about not having a magical gift, but doesn't do a very good job, and ends up just trying to say exactly what her mom says in the end and then makes a funny face for some reason. Her mom tells her she's just as special as the rest and that she doesn't need to make up for anything.
She's putting a nice little decoration next to everyone's room when abuela shows up and says "don't mess this up" basically.
She has a scene with the young cousin who she's sharing a room with, luring him out from under the bed with a present (a leopard). They go out of the room and into the party.
They show the party for a bit, then eventually it's time for the ceremony. The young cousin really wants frumpy to come walk with him because he's scared. After a bit of coaxing she does, and they walk towards a magical door, and he puts his hand on the doorknob. A toucan flies out and lands on his arm and it's obvious that they're talking and then a bunch of animals show up and his room opens and it's a big animal and nature themed room. After the excitement they get everyone with a gift together to take a photo, and in the flash of the photo a new musical number starts where frumpy whines about not having a miracle. In the process of the song, she goes to a part of the house where nobody is, and she sees a broken ceiling tile, and the house seems to be scared and shaking. she picks up the ceiling tile and it shatters slicing her hand clean open, (I'm not sure the mechanics of this... She's hold it with her fingers then her hand is sliced open) and she can see giant cracks forming everywhere. She rushes to the party and stops everyone to warn them but when they go back everything is fine, so the party continues.
She has a talk with her mom about how hard tonight must be on her (mom isn't wrong) as she cooks a magical healing bun for her hand.
In bed, she hears abuela talking, and worrying that they're going to lose everything and wishing that abuelo (grandfather) was still there to help her.
The next day, she's trying to talk to the cousin who can hear really well but ends up talking to the shapeshifter instead who is shapeshifted as the cousin who can hear really well, so that's a joke and then the hearing cousin comes up and says "Nobody was talking about this but you... and the rats in the walls... and your big strong sister, her eye was twitching all night"
They have a family meeting and while abuela is trying to hold a meeting frumpy is interrupting everything trying to find out what her big strong sister knows. We learn that princess sister is going to be married off to some big guy and the propsal is soon.
After the meeting frumpy meets up with big strong sister, who then sings all about how much pressure she's under because she's so strong . After that, big strong sister suggests looking for uncle bruno's final vision in his room.
She goes to the room, and finds the shards of glass that fit together to make a vision. She barely escapes because gathering the shards for some reason causes the main chamber to be destroyed. She takes the shards to her room.
Abuela finds her in the hallway and is about to ask about the sand in her hair when big strong sister comes up distraught because she felt weak. In the commotion, frumpy runs off.
There's a whole musical number about how we don't talk about Bruno because he makes prophecies that tell you bad things.
In the end of the number, she finally pieces together the vision and sees that the house is cracking behind a vision of her.
Her dad comes in the room and is shocked to see the vision slab. Frumpy immediately says everything in about 2 seconds. The dad says "we don't tell anyone", but the cousin with hearing heard everything.
It's the night of the proposal between princess sister and big guy, and all kinds of contrivances occur where the hearing cousin blabs to everyone who blabs to everyone, and it becomes a self-fulfililng prophecy -- the marriage proposal fails miserably and everyone's powers are acting up.
Frumpy sees a rat taking one of the pieces of the glass vision shard behind a painting. It turns out it's on a hinge. She goes in and wanders across. She runs into Bruno who "saves" her from a very shallow pit. He lives in the walls it turns out. She tries to convince him to have another vision, and eventually with the help of the young cousin who talks to animals (the animals told him everything) they agree to have another vision. During the vision, they find a new clue, a butterfly that leads to the revelation that to save the miracle she needs to hug her sister. This pisses off frumpy because she thinks her sister is a primadonna. Bruno explains that it isn't about his sister, it's about her, she's the key to saving the miracle, and he slinks back into his picture.
Frumpy enters Princess Sister's room. Princess demands an apology, and Frumpy gives a half-hearted apology she immediately takes back. Ultimately Princess says she never wanted to marry big guy and was only doing it to help the family. A cactus pops up, which Princess had never done before. It starts a whole musical number asking about her limits if only she wasn't limited to the perfection the role she percieves herself to be trapped in. By the end of the musical, she's using her powers in brand new ways representing her new way of thinking of the world, and the two hug and the magic candle burns brighter than we've seen it.
Abuela comes into the house, and is livid. The house is a mess, Princess Sister is a mess, the proposal is ruined, and Abuela is trying to pin it entirely on frumpy. Frumpy is trying to explain what she did is helping and it's good but abuela won't hear it. Frumpy gets really mad, saying nobody in the house will ever be good enough, and giving her an earful causing the house to be destroyed by cracks. She tries to save the magical candle and heroically succeeds, but the candle has gone out by the time she gets to it.
Her mom checks if she's ok, and afterwards frumpy runs off to a lake far from the village and the now destroyed house.
Abuela comes and starts to explain the full history of the miracle, starting with meeting Abuelo(grandfather). They meet, they fall in love, they get married, they have triplets. There's political turmoil in the city they live in, and eventually they flee. Soldiers or something on horseback are chasing them, and Abuelo decides to go back to I guess trade pokemon cards? But obviously he doesn't have any good ones so they cut him down where he stands, and in that moment Abuela is emotionally crushed and the magical miracle occurs, the candle wiping the bad men away and changing the landscape to save everyone, and building their house.
After hearing this story, frumpy realizes that it was actually pretty hard for abuela and explains how she recognizes the pain and hardship they faced, and their periods sync up or something and suddenly they're both better and everything is better.
Bruno shows up and is like "It was me! Don't take it out on frumpy!" but Abuela just hugs Bruno.
When they get back, there's a brief thing where Bruno is reunited with everyone, and frumpy sings a song about how "stars don't shine they burn and constellations shift", presumably talking about how a status quo can't be maintained forever. Then the villagers show up to help rebuild the house. There's another musical number about working together to rebuild the house, and the wisdom their ordeal has granted them.
The last bit was the family singing about how special frumpy is and how hard she worked and how much she suffered, and the front door doesn't have a doorknob, so she has to put it on. After watching this movie 9001 times, it occurred to me that these silly mexicans don't even know you aren't supposed to install the door and close the door before you put the doorknob on! You can't just smoosh a doorknob onto the hole and expect it to alll... you know what? It's just a show, I should really just relax. Anyway, she puts the doorknob on and the house is magically restored to a magical house, and the movie ends.
The Moral of the story:
So there's an intended moral, I think.
The intended moral is about the hidden cracks caused by the misunderstandings between the family members and the undue stress being put on everyone by abuela's high expectations, and how frumpy brought everyone closer together.
One thing I do like is that Abuela constantly says that they must work hard to be worthy of the magical miracle they were given, which isn't wrong, even if within the context of the story she was setting the bar to asian parent.
The real moral is a lot more complicated.
Frumpy's main superpower is being too autistic to just go with the flow like everyone else.
One question I haven't been able to answer is whether frumpy actually did cause this. It seems like the cracks are a visual manifestation of the emotional distance between the different family members, and they started when she was feeling distant from her family because they all had gifts and she didn't. The cracks formed again because she brought the vision shards back together, and the house finally collapsed because she had a temper tantrum at abuela. It's like, great job breaking it hero.
All the men in this movie are impotent losers. You have a simp who only fawns over his wife, the weak man who can't even finish a speech without just repeating what his wife said, the emotionally fragile prophet who runs away and hides in the walls because people are mean to him, and the shapeshifter who does so little the story could have existed in its entirety without him. Abuelo's defining characteristic is basically dying while trying to trade pokemon cards with the soldiers. Big guy was just a macguffin for princess sister and later hearing cousin.
I feel like if the men had been more masculine then much of this story would have been avoided. None of the 5 living men in the main story exhibited masculine strength, and so that's were I interpret the women breaking down because they don't have those pillars in place. Great, Strong Sister is physically strong, but she's carrying a bunch of weak men and there's nobody there to support her emotionally. Great, Princess Sister is emotionally strong, but big guy let himself be a Macguffin putting all the burdens on her, barely existing as a person. Uncle Simp obviously cares for Weather Aunt, but as a simp he's micromanaging her mood instead of being the sort of pillar so she didn't need to be so neurotic. Frumpy's dad finally found his balls in one scene, but it was too late -- the time for him to act with strength was long before the house already collapsed.
And then there's Bruno. Let's talk about Bruno. He let himself be dominated by his mother well into his adulthood to the point that he let himself be bullied by his mother, bullied by the town, bullied by everyone. The way he talks is weak. The way he stands is weak. If he had found his own strength which in a masculine sense is doing the right thing regardless of what others think, then this whole story would have been different. In some ways, frumpy needed to take on the weight he refused to lift.
I can see a number of criticisms of Abuelo as a failure as a man. He was busy making googoo eyes at his girlfriend and wife instead of keeping his ear to the ground of potential hazards which resulted in only realizing far too late that there were problems, and when those problems manifested he had no ability to use force to protect his family -- no weapons, no weapons training, he just walked towards them with his hands up like he was going to trade pokemon cards with them. I'll say he was certainly courageous walking back unarmed to confront armed warriors on horseback, but courage alone was a death sentence for him and but for the magic miracle would have been a death sentence for his wife and three children.
Honestly though, I don't think all that was intentional. I think the writers of the story actually want men who are like the ones in the story so they can feel like they can step in.
Of course, in a postmodern age it's not necessarily true that traditional gender norms are desirable, but clearly my argument is that in the complete absence of men with traditionally masculine virtues, we can see the facts empirically in front of us that there is a massive stress put on the women who suddenly have to be both the men and the women. Even if abuela was the head of the household, strong men would be pillars she could rest her burden upon and that clearly was not the case.
Why do kids like it:
No doubt, it's the music. The music in this movie is great, and some of it even charted on billboards. The big musical numbers are also really decent. There's also some really nice visuals. I particularly liked the bored eyes on the donkeys during strong sister's song.
What do I think:
This movie is deeply imperfect. The climax of the film in particular is not earned in the least. Frumpy tears the family apart, knocks their house down, and one story from Abuela later everything is all better? I don't care how nice the music in that scene was, it didn't make any sense. As I discussed at length in the last section, the men were weak losers and that was required to drive the story forward.
But you know what? It's acceptable. Unlike Elemental where I felt it was deeply flawed and had no redeeming characteristics, I like the theme of family on display (even though the family is dysfunctional), I like the idea that being granted a miracle you have a responsibility to be worthy of that miracle, I like the music, I like the underlying concept of empathy where it turns out Strong Sister and Princess Sister weren't perfect or strong and once you got to know them just a little better you'd realize that.
Modern Hollywood has a serious problem depicting healthy families because so few people in Hollywood come from healthy families. You have to think there's something like a T-Rex in the rearview mirror for such peopleto run towards something so horrifying as Hollywood so wholeheartedly.
Moana is another Disney film with family as a theme, and while the father and Maui were both imperfect characters, they were both people with a measure of masculine strength. The father in that movie was trying to protect his daughter and his tribe, and Maui was somewhat childish, but still exhibited many masculine virtues. Moana was interesting as well in that despite disregarding the wishes of her father, she was honoring the sprit of her ancestors, which in my view maintains filial piety.
In the past, it wasn't unusual to see a family in a story, but even in anime which tends to try to portray more traditional values than postmodern hollywood, there's graveyards of dead parents so they don't get in your way while you go on your adventure.
Would I want to watch it 9001 times? Well.... At least the music is nice.
