Just like Moana before it, our (first) son is currently completely obsessed with Frozen. It's the songs, mostly, though the full movies seem to be on our TV every weekend morning when I finally drag my butt out of bed. And I have no one to blame but myself.
Part of the reason I like having Disney+ is easy access to everything in Disney's extensive catalog, much of which I haven't seen. It's been fun checking out some of the older stuff, like The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949) and The Sword and the Stone (1963), and I'll certainly get to more. But to be honest I've missed many of the recent animated films too. What I'm getting to is I finally saw Frozen, which my wife's loved for years, for the first time a couple months ago. In a typical exercise, our son and I watched it in over a couple days while I folded laundry. Ever since it's been part of our day to day life, between his constant singing and frequent requests to listen and dance to the songs.
Most Disney Animation Studio movies, at least the best ones, have fantastic original songs that pair with and enhance the classic, typically fairy tale story being told. My generation, the elder Millennials, grew up during the Disney Renaissance where a string of hugely culturally influential films essentially saved the company and turned it into the powerhouse that now owns half the world (controlling ABC/ESPN, Marvel, Star Wars...). Many of these movies just about everyone knows like The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992) and The Lion King (1994). It really was the music that made these movies memorable and helped you best understand the characters involved. In this respect Frozen harkens back to this era in a way that hadn't (as far as I know) been achieved at that level since the '90s.
I already feel like I'm making this longer than it needs to be. I'm just impressed with the quality of these songs and the story-telling, regarding character development and exploration, that happens within them. The ones featuring the two main characters and sisters, Elsa (Idina Menzel) and Anna (Kristen Bell), do the heavy lifting and establish all the emotional beats at the core of the story entirely by themselves.
'Do You Want to Build a Snowman' is actually incredibly sad and shows both Anna's undying love for her sister and Elsa's continuing reluctant isolation amid the loss of their parents.
'For the First Time in Forever' directly contrasts Anna's excitement and Elsa's apprehension at re-joining the outside world.
'Love Is an Open Door' demonstrates Anna's purely innocent heart and drive to finally and completely jump into something new, even if its undoubtedly unwise.
'Let It Go,' obviously the best of all, is Elsa's emotional release of everything restraining her since that fateful day as a child. It also allows Idina Menzel to show off a little and repeatedly makes me wonder what this movie what look like if Elsa became the villain.
What sets apart Frozen to me, even above those older Disney films, is the complexity of the story. Not every character's motivation is clear from the beginning and there's a couple major plot twists. Then not everything is explained, like Elsa's powers, and not everything is resolved, like Anna's romantic love story. Considering this the full sequel treatment was warranted, something not many Disney movies have gotten or deserved.
Frozen 2 is worth seeing, even if it's not quite as good as the original, and has a few gems too. Our son absolutely loves Some Things Never Change, a pure nostalgia play to set up the story (reminding me of the beginning of Spider-Man 3 in doing some catch-up and using the false impression of a perfect life as a plot point). Into the Unknown is the big Elsa ballad this time and it's pretty awesome.
When I started this blog, I never planned on writing about so many kids movies. But they're a big part of my life right now and it turns out there are some good ones, with Frozen and Moana definitely fitting into that group. Plus it's fun writing about what will most likely be brief periods in our life with growing kids and rapidly changing interests. I want to remember this. For once our son has been hanging on my shoulder while I write, of course asking me to play the songs. That's fun.
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