Encanto Review: An Exciting Disney Film That Ranks Among The Best Animated Movie Of 2021

Cast: Stephanie Beatriz, John Leguizamo

Directors:  Jared Bush, Byron Howard

Filmyhype Ratings: 4/5 (four star) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

This 2021 we have been fortunate that Disney has released two of its animated classics based on original stories when it was necessary to go back to 2016 to find the previous one – the wonderful ‘Moana’. The first was ‘Raya and The Last Dragon’ an estimable adventure that mixed the modern with the traditional is fluency, and this Friday, November 26, it is the turn of ‘Encanto’. The first time we heard about ‘Encanto’ it coincided with the premiere of ‘Moana’ since Lin-Manuel Miranda had collaborated in the creation of the songs of the latter and revealed that he was going to take care of writing those of a project that for that time then it was in an early stage of development. Five years we have had to wait until it has come true and the wait has been worth it, because ‘Encanto’ is one of the great animated films of this 2021.

Encanto Review: The Story

The new Disney film welcomes us to the Madrigal home, an extraordinary family that lives in a house their casita equally out of the ordinary, a wonderful place called Encanto that has given each member of the large family a particular power. Whether it is super strength or the ability to control the climate or vegetation, or the ability to heal, each component of the Madrigals is distinguished by a specific and unique magical ability. Everyone except Mirabel, the only ordinary, different from the other family members. A normality that acquires a particular value when the girl discovers that Encanto’s magic is in danger and it is she, the only ordinary among the Madrigals, who represents the last hope to avert the lurking danger.

Mirabel is part of the Madrigal family, the landmark of a Colombian village hidden in the mountains. Years earlier, her abuela Alma Madrigal lost her husband while fleeing the violence in her home village, remaining alone with her three young children. Just then, a magical candle appeared that the family has kept for three generations and that saved Alma and his people. 

Encanto Review and Analysis

The candle gives life to the Madrigal house (which interacts with its inhabitants) and gives a special power to each component. The power of Isabela, Luisa and the other members of the family seems in some way linked to the character of its owner, sharpening some distinctive traits. When Mirabel was a young girl, the ceremony to obtain a power was held, but something went wrong: she is the only Madrigal without magical powers. Although everyone treats her with affection, this fact affects her relationship with her family and in particular with her grandmother. Yet it will be Mirabel, sharp and not oppressed by the weight that a magical power entails, to see the cracks that are opening in her family, realizing that something is endangering her solidity and her magic.

Let’s start with what is not surprising in Encanto, not because it is less valid from a qualitative point of view, but because in the wake of an always high technical / artistic level: the Disney Animation film is the usual joy for the eyes, with very rich backdrops colors in able to convey the Latin American aesthetic that inspires it, elaborate chamber movements, above all to accompany the musical numbers and follow the perfect timing of some successful physical gags (especially relating to the character of Bruno). A visual excellence on which the new musical compositions of Lin-Manuel Miranda author of the songs of Encanto are embedded , which convey with gusto the emotional moments of the story, although perhaps lacking a single that stands out in a particular way.

Songs like Under the Surface seem like a summary of that phenomenon called burn out that so dominated the conversation during and after the lockdown. Despite this narrative effort and strong themes for the average of the Disney canon – with a lot of not too veiled reference to what happens on the border between the United States and Mexico – there is not the momentum and fluency that Pixar proves to have on the same ground. 

Given the Latin setting, it is difficult not to make a comparison with Coco, who the writer did not like very much. However, there is no doubt that the Pixar film beats the Disney one on the whole technical line: the animations of Encanto and the character design of the Madrigals are pleasant and lively, but incapable of the directorial grandeur and the dazzling vision that Coco has been able to give in her most successful scenes.

The Last Words

Encanto we can only take up the concept used in the title, underlining the magic of normality that is told by the new Disney Classic in bringing the story of Mirabel into the room, the only member of the Madrigals who does not possess magical powers but not for this reason. less special and important in the economy of the family to which it belongs. A film in which a real antagonist is missing, in which the conflict develops in the intimacy of the protagonist and her casita but which confirms the usual technical-artistic level of Disney.