Frozen

Director: Chris Buck & Jennifer Lee
Screenplay: Jennifer Lee (story by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee and Shane Morris; inspired by the story “The Snow Queen” by Hans Christian Andersen)
Stars: Kristen Bell (Anna), Idina Menzel (Elsa), Jonathan Groff (Kristoff), Josh Gad (Olaf), Santino Fontana (Hans), Alan Tudyk (Duke), Ciarán Hinds (Pabbie / Grandpa), Chris Williams (Oaken), Stephen J. Anderson (Kai), Maia Wilson (Bulda), Edie McClurg (Gerda), Robert Pine (Bishop), Maurice LaMarche (King), Livvy Stubenrauch (Young Anna), Eva Bella (Young Elsa)
MPAA Rating: PG
Year of Release: 2013
Country: U.S.
Frozen
FrozenDisney’s Frozen is an immensely enjoyable, surprisingly invigorating marriage of the old and the new. It returns to the late-’80s/early ’90s Alan Menken/Howard Ashman Broadway musical style that rejuvenated the animation division with The Little Mermaid (1989) and Beauty and the Beast (1991) while also fully embracing the vast visual possibilities of computer-generated animation, whose ability to render glistening vistas of sun-dappled snow, weirdly refracting walls of ice, and the intricacies of the most delicate of snow flakes makes the idea of the film being done any other way almost unthinkable (for some time the plan was to produce it using traditional hand-drawn animation). Since the merging of Disney and Pixar in 2006, the Disney-branded computer-animated films have gotten better and better, moving far beyond the forced silliness of Chicken Little (2005) as they hit their stride with Tangled (2010), a humorous spin on the Rapunzel fairy tale, and reached a comedic and nostalgic high note last year with Wreck-It Ralph (2012) (the obvious cash-in of this summer’s Planes notwithstanding). Frozen, which not surprisingly was written and produced by the minds behind Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph, is another step forward.

Based ever-so-loosely on a few snippets of ideas in Hans Christian Anderson’s 1845 fairy tale “The Snow Queen,” Frozen is set in the fictional Nordic country of Arendelle, which allows the filmmakers to highlight beautiful landscapes and Scandinavian architecture while also dropping in random jokes about lutefisk. We are introduced to two royal sisters, Anna and Elsa (voiced as children by Livvy Stubenrauch and Eva Bella), the latter of whom possesses magical powers that allow her to freeze anything she touches and to produce snow and ice out of thin air. It’s a wonderful gift to have when you want to make a snowman and go sledding in the middle of the summer, but it is also a potential danger, which we see when Elsa accidentally hits Anna with one of her blasts of power, potentially freezing her to death. As a result, their parents insist that Elsa keep to herself and hide her powers while Anna’s memory of the incident and her sister’s abilities are wiped away with the help of a group of friendly trolls.

Years later, after their parents are tragically killed in a storm (the silent depiction of which is one of the film’s most dramatically and visually stunning moments, a beautiful exercise in profoundly affecting narrative minimalism), Anna (Kristen Bell) and Elsa (Idina Menzel) are now young adults ready to re-open the gates of their castle as Elsa, the eldest of the two, is to be officially coroneted queen. Anna, who is friendly, spunky, and tired of being locked away alone inside the castle, can’t wait for the ceremonies and all the people it will bring, while Elsa, weighed down with the burden of keeping her abilities a secret, dreads the event. When Anna meets and instantly falls in love with Hans (Santino Fontana), a prince from a neighboring country, and agrees to marry him, Elsa’s emotional response betrays her and her powers come flooding out, frightening everyone (including her).

Not knowing what else to do, she runs off into the mountains and builds herself an ice fortress in which she can remain alone, inadvertently leaving Arendelle paralyzed in a state of constant winter. Anna, being the plucky would-be heroine that she is, decides to find Elsa herself and convince her to turn off the cold, a journey that requires her to team with Kristoff (Jonathan Groff), an earnest young ice hauler who has spent most of his life with his emotive reindeer, Sven (in this regard he is the quintessential Disney orphan, just like Anna and Elsa). Sven is not the only sidekick, though, as we are later introduced to Olaf (Josh Gad), a snowman with buck teeth and an affable sensibility who has been accidentally brought to life by Elsa. Olaf’s role in the plot is virtually nonexistent except as comic relief, and if he weren’t so consistently funny, his presence might stand out as a grating sop to younger viewers looking for goofy physical humor.

Scripted by Jennifer Lee (Wreck-It Ralph) and directed by Lee and Chris Buck (Tangled), Frozen dangles a lot of fairy tale clichés and familiar plot lines in front of us, but primarily as distraction from what the filmmakers are really up to. While it is technically a “princess movie” in the vein of Cinderella (1950) and The Little Mermaid, the story’s fixation on love and its role as the ultimate redeemer is not limited to romantic affection. Quite the contrary, if anything Frozen plays as a none-too-subtle cautionary tale about amour of the first sight variety, emphasizing instead the idea that true love grows out of time and interaction. As it turns out, romantic love is not the engine that drives the story; rather, it is Anna’s love for her sister and Elsa’s tortured need to protect those around her by walling herself off, literally and figuratively. The story is, at heart, about filial love, as the bond between sisters—once all powerful, then broken, then slowly reassembled—gives the film its heart and its mind. While not quite a feminist wrecking of antiquated Disney gender roles, Frozen does offer a pliable middle ground in which its female characters are given voice and agency and something to do other than swoon over a man, but without completely discounting the power of and desire for romantic attraction.

Copyright ©2013 James Kendrick

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All images copyright © Walt Disney Animation Studios

Overall Rating: (3.5)




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