Review: FROZEN

FROZEN    (ANIMATED/FANTASY/MUSICAL)
4 out of 4 stars
Directed by Chris Buck & Jennifer Lee
Featuring the voices of Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Josh Gad, Jonathan Groff, Santino Fontana, Alan Tudyk, Ciaran Hinds
PG for some action and mild rude humor.
Verdict: A fine follow-up to TANGLED and a feminist revision of the Disney Renaissance classics, Disney Animation has outdone their cousins at Pixar once again with this brand-new animated musical featuring some of the best new Disney songs since THE LION KING.
YOU ENJOY FROZEN IF YOU LIKED:
TANGLED  (2010)
BEAUTY & THE BEAST (1991)
WRECK-IT RALPH (2012)
TARZAN (1999)
THE LION KING (1994) 

My feelings about FROZEN are of soaring elation and fully satisfied delight; my initial thoughts, on the other hand, were a tad cynical in some respects, but I'm going with my gut on this, especially since my thoughts have since evolved into something more appreciative.
I love Disney animation; I'm even something of a Disney geek.  My intense adoration of THE LION KING has only grown since I first saw it a two-and-a-half-year old tot, and it continues to rank among my personal all-time favorites.  I also love Disney Animation's "Princess movies," my favorites being THE LITTLE MERMAID, SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS and TANGLED.  Disney's animated features are practically a subgenre unto themselves, and the "Disney Princess" films even within that.  Traditionally, the stories are simplistic, even formulaic, with much of the heavy-lifting done with legendary musical numbers, throw in a few whimsical and palatable sidekicks for comic relief and to put in the marketing/merchandising spotlight, and you've got an animated family classic.  Because of their unparalleled appeal for children audiences though, these films are put under intense, arguably even unfair, scrutinization and cynicism.  Besides those who sneer at the occasionally simplistic storytelling and the titanic merchandising that accompany these films, Disney Princesses receive much of the same flack as Mattel's Barbie from contemporary feminist attitudes due to their huge influence on little girls as female role models.  Snow White is a character defined by domesticity as she cooks and cleans without complaint until her Prince Charming shows up, and Cinderella is not significantly different.  THE LITTLE MERMAID's Ariel is defined by her desire for a man who she's just barely met, and when Disney finally attempted to appease criticisms with BEAUTY & THE BEAST's Belle as an intelligent, proactive, feminist-friendly princess, she turned out to have a clean-cut case of Stockholm Syndrome.
But now comes FROZEN, and adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen, a story that has long eluded the best efforts of the Disney story department.  Often considered one of Andersen's greatest works, The Snow Queen is a very strange and cryptic Christian parable of a young girl's quest to free her friend of an icy glass shard that has frozen heart in ice and is now held captive by the ominous Snow Queen.  FROZEN, however, is a very loose, "inspired by" adaptation of the fairy tale, now focusing on a pair of royal sisters; the younger, clumsy, reckless and ridiculously optimistic Anna (voiced by Kristen Bell) and her cautious and emotionally fragile older sister, Elsa (voiced by Idina Menzel, best known for originating the role of "Elphaba" on Broadway's Wicked), the heir to the throne of Arendelle.  Elsa was born with a magical ability to create and manipulate snow and ice, but after an accident as youngsters, Elsa and her powers have been hidden away from the rest of the kingdom, including Anna.  On the day of Elsa's coronation as queen, Anna becomes stricken with a foreign prince at the Coronation Ball, but Elsa refuses to give her blessing to such a brief infatuation and their sisterly spat exposes Elsa's powers to the horrified kingdom.  Elsa flees the scene to the mountains neighboring the kingdom, but she leaves the kingdom buried in an eternal, sub-zero winter, so Anna teams up with Kristoff (voiced by Jonathan Groff), an unsociable mountain man who prefers the company of his reindeer Sven to that of people, to retrieve Elsa from her icy isolation and return things to their rightful state.

FROZEN bears nearly all the elements of the Disney animated classics, with princesses, princes, magical elements, spectacular visuals, catchy musical numbers, comic supporting characters, etc., but then it uses these tropes in all different ways.  It joshes its predecessors some with satirical plot elements regarding love at first sight, but as it distances itself from archaic attitudes, it does so in a way that feels familiar to its predecessors.  With a screenplay written by Jennifer Lee, who also acts as co-director with TARZAN-director Chris Buck, and is the first female director of a Disney animated feature, this is easily the most feminist Disney Princess movie ever.  Although Disney has been getting better and better at politically correcting the gender politics of their princess movies, and I thought they hit the note perfectly with TANGLED, FROZEN takes it further, sidestepping every possible accusation of sexism or poor female role models like clockwork.
Anna could aptly be described as "a-dork-able"; a go-getter in every sense and intelligent despite being physically/emotionally/mentally clumsy, she's ever brave, and a cutie to boot, but still has bedhead and drool in the morning.  Through Anna, FROZEN is also the most character-driven Disney animated fairy tale to date, as her learning curve shapes the plot of the film as opposed to the magic plot devices and countdown timers that dominate most Disney classics.  And yet, it is her sister Elsa, who commands the most attention as the most interesting character in the film.  Suppressing not only her powers, but her personality with them, she forced to be "the good girl," representing the standards of those around her, and while this easily ties in with some women's feelings about what earlier Disney Princesses have represented, there's also a strong case to be made that Elsa is gay, which is an idea that I'd like to revisit later and in greater depth in another post, but suffice it to say that while something like that could only be "unofficial," it would make sense, and she has no identified romantic interest in the film.  Anyway, she's a sympathetic and tragic character whose motto is "Conceal; don't feel," but when she's finally "outed," she blossoms into a fully-formed personality,

but still forced into solitude until Anna proves that she's loved regardless.
The primary sidekick is Olaf, a snowman magically endowed with life, who fantasizes about warm things, which he holds no experience in, but longs for.  Olaf is a terribly dangerous sort of character to attempt, the sort that is prone to become a "Jar Jar Binks," aka the annoying would-be slapstick character, but in what seems to be a combination of a hilarious vocal performance by Broadway's The Book of Mormon star Josh Gad, endearing animation, solid writing and a heaping dose of dumb luck, he pays off.  The stone trolls who Kristoff lives with are on slightly shakier footing, modeled after Scandavian cultural depictions and portrayed in the 'big happy family' trope, but their part is significantly smaller and they do no damage.  Finally, Sven the reindeer is another success in the fine tradition of pantomime animal sidekicks.
The humor is where FROZEN has its closest calls; there are some huge, gut-busting laughs, mainly involving Kristoff's wry commentaries (one moment gets a hilarious payoff towards the end of the end credits in an unconventional disclaimer), but there are some real misses, such as the awkward introductions of the sniveling Duke of Weselton at the Coronation Ball, and a couple girl-power moments utterly lacking in subtlety, but it's inconsequential.

Finally, the music, easily one of the most important factors in a Disney animated feature (practically up there with the 'animated' bit); it's great.  I downloaded the soundtrack on my way out of the theater.  The songs, written by the husband-and-wife writing team of Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, both of whom previously wrote new songs for 2011's WINNIE THE POOH, and the latter of whom collaborated with Trey Parker and Matt Stone on The Book of Mormon, are some of the best new Disney songs since the "Disney Renaissance" of the 1990s featured the work of Howard Ashman & Alan Menken and Elton John & Tim Rice.  There's one definite standout, Elsa's anthem Let It Go, belted with dramatic bravado by Idina Menzel (a single version by Demi Lovato plays over the end credits), and it has the Academy Award for Best Song in bag as arguably the best song in Disney Animation since THE LION KING's Can You Feel the Love Tonight?  Anna also gets a great anthem in For the First Time in Forever, and the charming Do You Want to Build a Snowman and Love is An Open Door would be standouts in any of Disney's last several films.  Olaf's mid-show showstopper, In Summer, is an amusing ditty, but a novelty, and I didn't think the trolls' song Fixer Upper was especially memorable, but it serves for the story beats.
In injecting the Disney Princess with a booster of contemporary feminist power, we do have to trade in a lot of the sweeping romance that pervades those that came before, but there still is romance.  However, romance plays second fiddle to a different sort of love, a platonic and familial love that is refreshing to see in the spotlight and provides a greater source of development to the female leads, both of whom are likely to be a pair of the most relatable Disney Princesses to modern female audiences ever.  For myself, a college-age male, I look forward to at least a few more viewings of this emotional powerhouse certain to join the ranks of the great Disney Animated Classics.