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The original fairy tale concerns a young girl trying to save her best friend before his heart freezes due to a piece of a broken mirror created by the devil poisoning him. The Snow Queen abducts her best friend, and a robber girl, some crows, a princess and a reindeer help her along the way. Also, there's a witch that has her cottage cast into eternal summer and a few other diversions factor into the overall plot. Much has been stripped down to its essential elements, which is a bit of a shame since The Snow Queen is one of Andersen’s finest, grandest stories.
Disney keeps the concept of a young girl seeking out to rescue someone before her heart freezes, a plucky reindeer, a snow queen and that’s about it. It takes these generic pieces and creates something special and very charming out of them. Finally a princess movie from Disney that acknowledges the long-standing tradition of the two main characters marrying after knowing each other for roughly twenty-four hours, or less. Granted, this is a carry-over from a fairy tale, but those are from a time when that didn’t seem totally out of the ordinary. And it takes a nice feminist stance in having the two main female characters save the day by working out their relationship problems with each other instead of relying upon a male character to swoop in and save the day.
One of Frozen’s biggest problems is that for a musical film, with about a dozen songs, only four of them are remotely memorable. “In Summer” is the goofy sidekick song, and in this case it’s a snowman named Olaf voiced by Josh Gad. Gad’s vocal performance throughout is endearingly ditzy and deadpan, and I’m convinced they allowed him to ad-lib quite a bit. “Summer” sees Olaf dreaming about what it would be like to experience warmer weather and do whatever it is that snow tends to do in these circumstances. “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” starts off as a bit of cute pleas from a younger sister to an older one, but ends up quietly breaking your heart as time passes and we see the fractured relationship between the two of them, and the abusive decision by their parents, has left both of these women in emotional tailspins. Did I mention that this happens at the very beginning of the movie? Well, there you go. “Love is an Open Door” is a meet-cute between a prince and princess that features an Arrested Development joke and some joyous harmonies.
But all of these pale in comparison to Elsa, our snow queen, belting out “Let It Go.” A song that feels like a gay pride anthem laying in wait as she releases the pain of her past and embraces her inner-fabulous drag queen. Idina Menzel, one of the shining lights of Broadway, gives Elsa’s coming out song a great reading, building it up slowly before releasing the vocal pyrotechnics towards the end. It’s a showstopper and no musical sequence after it even remotely compares. Just give it the damn Oscar already. Disney has the market cornered in Best Original Song category, and for good reason – these songs work outside of the film, but they’re essential to telling the story.
But “Let It Go” also points to another problem with Frozen, some of it peaks too soon. I didn’t need the trolls song, which I found unmemorable and felt that it was nothing but filler. But an even worse offense is how the animation looks identical to Tangled. Elsa and Anna look just like each other, and Rapunzel. If one were to think about Belle, Ariel, Jasmine, Snow White, Cinderella and Aurora they would think of an overall Disney style of character design, but they each possess their own unique facial characteristics. Not Elsa and Anna, and the studio was done no favors by head animator, Loni DiSalvo, stating that female characters were harder to animate than men because they must remain pretty at all times. It seems a bit lazy to work so hard to create personalities that are more relatable, and then have them look the same as each other and a preceding character.
But Frozen remains a solid film, one that is easy to embrace and makes great strides towards presenting a stronger female agency in its characters. It’s got the laughs, a few enjoyable songs, a pleasing overall look despite feeling very similar to Tangled. I just wish that Disney would go back to hand drawn animation. Think of how lovely Frozen would have looked in watercolors, pencil and ink! Ah, maybe one day they’ll return to that format.
But “Let It Go” also points to another problem with Frozen, some of it peaks too soon. I didn’t need the trolls song, which I found unmemorable and felt that it was nothing but filler. But an even worse offense is how the animation looks identical to Tangled. Elsa and Anna look just like each other, and Rapunzel. If one were to think about Belle, Ariel, Jasmine, Snow White, Cinderella and Aurora they would think of an overall Disney style of character design, but they each possess their own unique facial characteristics. Not Elsa and Anna, and the studio was done no favors by head animator, Loni DiSalvo, stating that female characters were harder to animate than men because they must remain pretty at all times. It seems a bit lazy to work so hard to create personalities that are more relatable, and then have them look the same as each other and a preceding character.
But Frozen remains a solid film, one that is easy to embrace and makes great strides towards presenting a stronger female agency in its characters. It’s got the laughs, a few enjoyable songs, a pleasing overall look despite feeling very similar to Tangled. I just wish that Disney would go back to hand drawn animation. Think of how lovely Frozen would have looked in watercolors, pencil and ink! Ah, maybe one day they’ll return to that format.
