Frozen - Movie Review
No, you haven't read that incorrectly I am actually reviewing the Disney movie Frozen.
Yes, I know that this movie has now been out for years but when you have your own blog you can write whatever you want.
Basically, one of the main reasons I decided to watch Frozen tonight was A) I haven't seen it in honestly years and B) I just had moderate oral surgery today and haha fuck you I can do what I want
I'm also (hopefully) going to be introducing a new theme for this section of my blog. That is, it is my goal to watch and review a movie a week. Recently I've had this weird aversion to watching movies / TV shows / basically any media that isn't Youtube by myself and I want to try to cure that. I do understand that culturally movies are best enjoyed in groups but I'm a strong independent gay boy who don't need no man. Also like as a young adult I really want to expand my independence and movie library so I think this is a cool way to do so.
I watch a movie, then write a blog post about it.
Gives me an incentive of sorts.
ANYWAY
Back to Frozen.
One of the reasons I've been avoiding re-watching Frozen honestly is I watched it with one of my exboyfriends. Well, THE ex-boyfriend. My big ex. I've avoided it until now because I really didn't want to open old emotional wounds. But, tonight I reflected and decided that enough time had passed and that the only way to work through old memories is to face them head on.
So I sat down, turned up the volume and began less of a walk, more of a run down memory lane.
In total I'd say that when Frozen first came out I probably saw it around seven to eight times. Three times in theatres then the rest on some sort of device. Needless to say I'm fairly familiar with the general story line and characters (and majorly obsessed with the soundtrack.) Granted, even if you've actively avoided seeing the movie I'm sure that'd still be the case. Just having done a primary Google search I see that it's the highest grossing animated movie ever, as well as the forth highest grossing Disney movie ever. I take it that word just gets around.
But that's not really why I watched it tonight. I've always had a soft spot for musicals, especially a movie like this which has so many vocal powerhouses. Idina Menzel is one of my vocal heroes and makes me feel bad every day that I won't ever reach the same kind of vocal prowess that she has. I first heard her in the Wicked soundtrack and I've been in love ever since.
It's also a visually stunning film. Having watched it so many times, tonight I paid less attention to the story and more to the backgrounds and smaller details. I remember reading something somewhere that said the animation studio actually had to create an entirely new way of animating to successfully render Elsa's hair. Which I think is ridiculously cool. In a movie primarily about SNOW I would expect it to have a pretty good handle on animating ice. Which, don't worry, it does.
Like any movie which gains this much popularity the controversy around it's story can be rather polarizing (pardon the pun.) If you are a person that condemns this film purely because it's "just another Disney musical" then you've already missed out on some of the deeper meanings. Yes, it's another Disney heroine story but it's also so much more than that. It's a story which chooses family bonds over a prince and leaves the message that there is more than one type of love other than that of a man. Yes, at some points the film is rather juvenile but adults watching need to remember that it is primarily a children's film, intended (obviously) for a younger demographic. The fact that we finally have a Disney story that doesn't centre around a masculine love interest but instead focuses on different types of love is amazing.
However.
On the flip side of that there is something to be said on how the characters (mainly Elsa and Anna) are treated throughout the movie. Their parents decision to completely isolate Elsa after the snow incident, basically insuring that she develops a fear complex towards her powers was very much how NOT to handle that sort of situation. After the troll elder tells her parents that "there is beauty in her power but fear is her enemy" having them be like "K, cool well now lets just lock her in the castle indefinitely" probably didn't help the situation. Having that as a president though analyising Elsa's reactions throughout the rest of the movie I can understand how she reacts whenever anyone tries to get close to her (emotionally or otherwise.)
In all I like Frozen for what it represents. It shows us that Disney (however tentatively) is able to step somewhat outside it's comfort zone and experiment with a different movie formula. My only hope is that they will continue to do this without tokenizing whichever different characters they're attempting to represent.
I will also now be singing Let It Go for like a week...