(Disclaimer:
in order to give a thorough analysis, this review contains
spoilers. Normally I'd keep it
spoiler-free, but this review is primarily directed towards people
who have already seen Frozen. Also, it's been awhile since I've
seen the movie; so forgive me if I get any details wrong.)
When
I first saw Frozen,
I knew very little about the plot. Three pieces of information had
leaked through the social networks: one, that Olaf is apparently a
cool name; two, that pretty much everybody loved Frozen;
and three, that “Let It Go” was supposed to be the most
incredible song in the history of ever.
As a
result, I watched Frozen
with almost no idea of what was going to happen.
Just
like every movie, Frozen
had its ups and downs. I'll leave off aesthetic details like
animation style and song tunes and focus instead on theme and story.
First,
the positives! Frozen
marked a departure from some of the typical clichés of the “Disney”
genre. The most obvious is that Disney finally refuted the idea that
true love can be forged in a day. (For some reason, however, “Love
Is An Open Door” remains a popular song, despite the fact that one
of the singers ends up being a lying traitor and effectively
nullifies the song's message.)
More importantly,
the sort of love dealt with in the movie is, for once, not romantic.
It is instead the story of sisterly love—a much more powerful and
relevant theme in a culture that tends to neglect family
relationships.
Other highlights
of the movie included humor and originality. In terms of humor, Olaf
had the monopoly. He had more good lines than anyone else in the
movie, I think; my only disappointment is that he didn't melt at the
end. (I'm one of those people who love bittersweet endings – don't
hate me.)
One
of my friends once told me, “Yeah, humor doesn't really get better
as you get older—it just gets more vulgar.” Frozen
illustrated this very well, especially when compared to shows for
older audiences such as Sherlock.
The
banter was clean, without losing any of its potency.
Something
Frozen
also did well was creating a unique concept. I've told many people
before, I love Frozen
in
concept. Elsa's ability and the danger she brings to her family as a
result are perfect story-starters. Inadvertently causing everlasting
winter but being unable to find a way to reverse it is another
concept that is incredible fodder for a good story.
And yes, in terms
of story, there was a huge amount of potential. The first ten or
fifteen minutes were the best of the movie, as they provided a slew
of character development, background, and emotion in a very condensed
amount of time. Here is where Elsa received most of her development,
and it made her (by far) the best character of the movie.
Here
is a good place to transition into the drawbacks of Frozen.
Yes, there was a lot of potential—but sadly, a lot of it was
unused. The dilemma Elsa had was excellent—whether to maintain contact with her
sister and risk hurting her again, or to refuse to see her in order
to protect her.
Yet
the emotional punch only went as far as twenty minutes. I was under
the impression that the use of Elsa's gift could kill Anna, if Anna
remembered. (Think Doctor
Who
and the Doctor-Donna.) When Elsa revealed her gift and nothing
happened to Anna, I felt cheated of the story's tension. Before, the
cost of revealing her gift was to kill Anna; now it was only the
potential of
hurting her, which was hardly as potent. Elsa's nobility in hiding
herself from the world became, instead of a sacrifice, a self-imposed
independence.
Which brings me to my next point: the contradictory nature of “Let
It Go” and how it lessened my respect for Elsa. (In clarification:
I have no qualms with it, musically.)
My
reservations about the song could be summarized in one line: “The
cold never bothered me anyway.” If the song had been about letting
go of fear and hurt, then perhaps I would have liked it. But the
bent of the song was not towards letting go of the negative things
that her gift has given her. It was letting go of other people so
that she could be by herself with her gift. It represented a
rejection
of her self-sacrifice, a rejection of her responsibility. (“No
right, no wrong, no rules for me,” she says in the song.)
Her solitude became less and less a sacrifice, and more and more an
affirmation of “I don't need them. I can be myself here, alone,”
which is ultimately a destructive ideal.
That's what it says in the context of the story. But it seems like
the writer half-wanted to relate the song to the story, and
half-wanted to create a single all by itself. In context it is a
negative song—but taken alone, it seems more like a positive cry
for independence and the fearless use of her gift, which completely
contradicts where Elsa's character is at that point in the movie.
(The use of her gift in later scenes is anything but fearless.)
The end of the movie dealt with this fear well, and yet the song is
still written and interpreted positively, rather than in the negative
context. It's a contradiction that bothered me the whole movie.
This could have been solved fairly easily. If Elsa's choices,
motivations, and the prices for her actions had been clearly defined,
then there would be no contradiction, and the story would be
stronger. Instead her character was static and the potential emotion
that comes with self-sacrifice was wasted.
It's not the only contradiction, either. Anna, too, was
contradictory at times. While her impulsiveness never changed, the
way she related to her sister did. She exhibited bitterness at her
sister's isolation, which is the natural, human reaction.
Yet she pursued her sister, sang a duet about not living in
isolation—what happened to all those years where she never saw her
sister? Did she harbor no lasting character change as a result? Her
motivations were vague and confused.
The movie suffered from other issues. There was no real villain
character until Anna was betrayed at the end—and from the first
time the prince saw her, I knew that he was going to turn traitor.
And the conversation that ensued when he did was so rife with clichés
and wooden dialogue that it made me wince. Some of the songs also
had problems with being bland and overused—and everyone saw that
Anna and Christophe were “shipped” by the writers. (That is to
say, they would be a couple by the end of the movie.)
Plotwise, the story lacked a satisfying and even arc. The pacing had
problems. After the first ten minutes, which were heavy in character
development, Elsa's character came to a virtual standstill, and Anna
accomplished almost nothing to do with the plot till she got herself
stabbed with an icicle.
You
see, good stories rely on raising the stakes progressively higher to
keep the tension high; for half the movie, the stakes remained the
same. The tension only grew once the “ice” began to chill Anna's
heart. Raising the stakes too slowly or too quickly either cause a
movie to feel dragging or rushed. A good movie plot might progress
by developing the plots and raising the stakes thus: two, four, six,
eight, ten. It felt like Frozen
went like this: one, two, seven, eight, ten.
In
summary: Frozen
had a lot of potential, and a lot of highlights. The theme was
wonderful and sorely needed. But unfortunately, it was tainted by
irregular pacing, some generic subplots, and sloppy character
development. It was great in concept, poor in execution.
What
do you think? What was your opinion on Frozen?
