“Encanto” introduces the Madrigal family. Photo/ (Disney/TNS)
By: Mahala Treish, Photo Editor
Lin-Manuel Miranda, lively illustrations and a heartfelt story are some of the key ingredients for an entertaining and unique Disney movie. “Encanto,” which has recently grown in popularity. It was one of the biggest animated movies over the pandemic and made $93.8 million gross in the U.S.
“Encanto” is directed by Bryon Howard who directed “Tangled” and “Zootopia” and Jared Bush, who co-directed “Zootopia” with Howard. The colors that are used in “Encanto” create a vivid and bright setting, which is something that
really stands out. The animated movie has all original songs written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who is widely known for writing music in “Moana” and creating “Hamilton” the Broadway musical.
The movie focuses on the Madrigal family, who live in a magical house in the mountains of Colombia. Each character in the family has magical powers except for one child, Mirabel, voiced by Stephanie Beatriz. Mirabel is the only person in the family who realizes something is off about the magic. It’s dying and she has to find a way to save it. She believed all her life that by being around magically gifted people it made her unexceptional, but during her quest to save the magic she is met with the truth.
One of the biggest strengths of this movie was the music. All carefully crafted and influenced by the Colombian culture, the music helped lead you through the movie, telling you a lot more than the dialogue, each song showing the character’s feelings, personality and story. Not only is the soundtrack making history by being the first since 2019 to hit number 1 on the Bill- board charts, the song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” became the highest charting Disney song in 26 years, quickly passing “Let it Go.”
The biggest weakness in this movie were some of the dialogue scenes. There were many times throughout the movie where the songs helped the audience understand the movie more than when the characters were having conversations. It would have been nice to see the characters converse rather than singing to each other. The scenes were just not as interesting as the music and could have brought more to the film.
“Encanto’s” target audience is Disney lovers and children, but the film has gained attention from people of all ages. While on multiple social media platforms like Twitter and Tik Tok, you can find many adults singing along to the songs, coming up with theories about the movie and even using the scenes and music to make relatable jokes and content.
“I thought Encanto was an enjoyable Disney movie. I thought the visuals were really good especially for an animation, and the songs were pretty catchy. Disney delivered the plot very well throughout the whole movie,” junior Sky Polanco said.
“I loved the movie. It made me cry. My favorite character was Mirabel because she had a lot of responsibility. I truly saw myself in her while watching the movie,” senior Amani Highsmith said.
Mirabel and the Madrigal family story is not one to miss, creating a unique story that showcases a new group of people and producing a record-breaking soundtrack.
