In a year saturated with wonderful animation, Disney’s Encanto charms and belts its way into the pack. Boasting gorgeous animation, a stellar voice cast, and music from Lin-Manuel Miranda, Encanto is a salve for winter’s darkness.
Synopsis
Abuela Alma (María Cecilia Botero) leads the Madrigal family within a protected and magical Colombian village. While fleeing from conquistadors who killed her husband Pedro, Alma was presented with a magical candle. That candle brought with it many “blessings” for Alma and the other survivors from her village she fled with.
Among them are a magical home (a “casita”) with a mind of its own, raised mountains around the casita and surrounding village to keep out any invaders, and the promise of magical abilities for Alma and every member of her family, starting with the three triplets she carried with her on the run.
Now, many years later, every member of the Madrigal family has a “gift,” except for granddaughter Mirabel (Stephanie Beatriz). During the ceremony meant to grant her an ability as a child, the candle left her with nothing.
As a result, she strives to support her magical family and fit in even while she feels inadequate. However, when cracks appear in the casita, and her family’s gifts start to fade, Mirabel must take charge and save her family and the whole village from whatever danger lurks in the shadows.
Animation
At this point, saying Disney’s animators deliver exceptional work is unsurprising. All the same, Encanto’s animation design and execution are glorious to behold. Because the entire story, save for brief flashbacks, takes place within the protected village and casita, the art direction is more about detailing a contained location as opposed to something like Raya and the Last Dragon which depended on expansive worldbuilding.
For the village, this means a careful eye to draw on Colombian architecture and style from the time period. It brings to mind the work done in Black Panther to imagine Wakanda as drawing on African imagery.
Both films take their heritage seriously and reposition them within protected areas that allow the beauty and creativity to flourish without colonial violence impeding. The village is a garden of warm yellows and rich blues, nestled within the mountain’s lush greenery.
One Magical House
The star of Encanto, however, is the magical casita. From the outside, it has the look of a precocious child’s LEGO building. As the family expanded, so did the house. New wings, towers, and rooms grow out to contain the life within.
The color palette delights, incorporating intricate tilework and bursting flowers into the villa feel. Adding to this is how the house comes alive. Doors flap like eyelids, tiles grow and crash like waves, all the while interacting with the Madrigal’s and their guests.
As if that weren’t already magical enough, each person’s room is an enchanted abode meant to match the inhabitants’ gift. Little Antonio (Ravi Cabot-Conyers) speaks to animals, so his room is a tropical paradise complete with an enormous tree and treehouse at the center.
Isabela (Diane Guerrero) grows flowers, so her room is a gardenscape befitting Versailles. On and on, in each corner of the casita, there is more magic to behold. It is Disney’s newest crown jewel of an animated creation.
Lin-Manuel Miranda
It was quite a year for multi-hyphenate Lin-Manuel Miranda. A recording of his smash-hit musical Hamilton premiered on Disney+, inspiring a whole new wave of admiration. His first hit musical, In The Heights, was adapted to film by John M. Chu. Miranda even stepped behind the camera for the first time, directing Andrew Garfield in Tick, Tick…Boom! for Netflix.
Somehow in the midst of all of that, he worked with Germaine Franco to write 44 songs for Encanto. It is not Miranda’s first work with Disney, but the tracks here stand out as the best compositional and lyrical efforts he has delivered for the studio so far.
The Songs
Kicking it off is “The Family Madrigal” performed primarily by Stephanie Beatriz. The song allows Mirabel to introduce three children, one of them fiendishly overcaffeinated, to her family and their abilities.
Mirabel strolls through town and the casita during the sequence, therefore also providing a sense of place. It is a boatload of exposition, but Miranda’s compositional combination of witty, fast, hip-hop adjacent lines furnish the information dump with verve and vigor.
Paired with an earworm of a chorus, all of which Beatriz sings with zeal, the tune effortlessly sets the tone for the rest of the film, calling back structurally to the opening number in Hamilton which offloads pages of American history through catchy riffs, runs, and refrains.
Franco’s orchestrations complement Miranda’s songwriting wonderfully, pulling on an array of acoustic and symphonic sounds. “Dos Oruguitas” is a gorgeous love song set over acoustic guitar. “What Else Can I Do?” is an electronically-tinged power ballad about self-discovery that explodes off the screen.
The standout among these numbers however is “We Don’t Talk About Bruno.” Narratively, the song delves into missing Uncle Bruno, whose ability to see the future left him at odds with the rest of his family.
Ascending from a beat partway between salsa and Kendrick Lamar, nearly every major cast member puts a driving spin on their most unnerving interaction with Bruno. Miranda excels at crafting medleys that pull on various musical schools, and “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” marks among his best work. Memorable, masterful, and oozing with style.
Voice Cast
The voice cast for Encanto is a spoil of riches. Continuing the recent Disney trend, the cast combines movie stars with lesser-known but just as talented performers. The result is an energetic and thoroughly engaging collection of vocal performances.
The casting, it’s worth noting, is also a continued corrective in terms of Disney rectifying their traditional issue of bringing on nearly all-white casts to voice non-white characters. The cast of Encanto is almost entirely Latinx performers. It may not be something an audience sees in an animated feature, but it is a vital part of the major studios putting their millions where their mouths are in terms of diversity and inclusion.
Turning to the performances themselves, Encanto functions like a traditional stage musical. There is a vast ensemble, but each principal member is afforded a showcase song or scene. Mauro Castillo and Carolina Gaitan, playing Félix and Pepa, own most of “We Don’t Talk About Bruno.”
Belting as Luisa, Jessica Darrow brings heart and a wonderful dose of Herculean camp to “Surface Pressure.” In one scene built around a family dinner where a villager intends to propose to Isabela, we are treated to a meal scene in the spirit of the hysterical Moonstruck finale.
Each character has something they’re hiding or stewing on, and all it takes is one manic meal for it all to spill out onto each other. The vocal performances coalesce into precise chaos, highlighting also the supreme audio mixing necessary in any animated film.
Stephanie Beatriz
Anchoring the whole film though is Stephanie Beatriz as Mirabel. While each of Mirabel’s family members has a crisis about losing their gifts, Mirabel is a steady, if anxious, presence that forges on to save the day. Best known for playing brusque yet loving Rosa Diaz on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, here Beatriz taps into an entirely different register.
Mirabel begins Encanto projecting a happy front while harboring a cacophony of self-doubt and disappointment around her non-existent gift. As that mutates into the fear that her difference is causing her family pain, Beatriz modulates the peppy voicing to one riddled with unease.
Beatriz embodies Mirabel through the arc all the way to her triumphant final moments, locating vocal grace notes to convey a young woman courageously navigating a crisis. Plus, with the most songs of any performer, she takes to Miranda’s mix of lyricism and staccato rapping with ease. She is exceptional.
Conclusion
Coming on the heels of Raya and the Last Dragon and Luca, Encanto manages to improve the already high bar of feature Disney animation efforts in 2021. The film’s craft captures a sense of joy and looseness that flawlessly matches its fairy tale-adjacent story. It’s possible that many missed out seeing it while it was in theaters. Hopefully its recent addition to Disney+ will bring this beautifully wrought film to a wider audience.
More from Cinema Scholars:
ENCOUNTER – A Review Of The New Riz Ahmed Thriller
BEING THE RICARDOS: A Cinema Scholars Review
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