"Encanto": review

Mirabel and Bruno

[No significant spoilers.]

2021's "Encanto" is an animated Disney musical-comedy-fantasy film about the Madrigal family, an extended family in Colombia that lives in a magical house with its own personality. The magical spell (encanto) powering the house comes from a candle that acquired supernatural powers during a moment of tragedy when Pedro Madrigal, later known as Abuelo (grandfather), turned to stop the pursuit of the men who had forced him, his wife Alma, and the rest of their village to flee. Pedro's death was heartbreaking to Alma, the mother of fraternal triplets, and her grief conjured the magical candle that provided the "miracle" that would later create the sentient house, la Casita, and bestow the blessings of special powers upon the Madrigal family members—all but one: Mirabel, the film's protagonist.

Many years after Pedro's death, Alma, now known as Abuela (grandmother), is the family matriarch, and while she herself doesn't seem to have any special powers,* her children and grandchildren do. Among her own triplets, daughter Pepa can control weather through her moods, daughter Julieta can heal people through the food she cooks, and son Bruno can see the future. Bruno ends up an outcast because his visions tend to be vague and are always interpreted in the worst possible way. He leaves the family and disappears. Meanwhile, among the grandkids, Mirabel's older sister Luisa has been gifted with super strength, her other sister Isabela has been blessed with stunning beauty and the ability to create plants at will, and her five-year-old cousin Antonio acquires the ability to talk to animals. The Madrigal family uses its special gifts to help the village that has sprung up around la Casita, with awkward and magic-less Mirabel doing her Muggle best to also be of assistance.

Despite her lack of powers, Mirabel starts having visions of la Casita developing cracks, and of the magical candle flickering, threatening to blow out. Her search to find out what this means, and how the house's and candle's deterioration might be affecting her family's powers, leads her to track down her uncle Bruno, the black sheep, who has actually been living alongside the family this entire time in a hidden place. What Mirabel discovers about the nature of the problem with the encanto will lead us into spoiler territory, so I'll stop my plot synopsis here to discuss other aspects of the film.

As is to be expected with Disney productions, "Encanto" looks beautiful. From what I understand, when Disney does these sorts of culturally specific films, they take a crew to the place they're going to depict—in this case, Colombia—and drink in as much detail as they can about the cuisine, the architecture, and all aspects of the local culture. "Encanto" is nothing if not thoroughly marinated in Colombian imagery. The effect is, per the film's title, enchanting.

Directed by Jared Bush, Byron Howard, and Charise Castro Smith, "Encanto" is smoothly paced and filled with entertaining song-and-dance numbers that contain soaring emotion and no small amount of humor. Most of the songs are by musical powerhouse Lin-Manuel Miranda (of "Hamilton" fame), and the voice cast (Stephanie Beatriz, María Cecilia Botero, John Leguizamo, Mauro Castillo, Jessica Darrow, Angie Cepeda, Carolina Gaitán, Diane Guerrero, and Wilmer Valderrama—I know only Leguizamo, who voices Bruno) is solid. 

The film also contains some touching moments, and this is where I have to remind my readers that my stroke last year altered my personality: I can no longer watch something funny without immediately laughing out loud, and I can no longer watch anything remotely touching without wanting to cry. As silly as it sounds, "Encanto" left me in tears at certain moments even though I sincerely tried to remain manfully stoic. That said, my off-kilter emotions should not be taken as a measure of how touching the film actually is: as I've implied, I'm now brain-damaged and thus susceptible to heartwarming moments. I kind of hate myself for this affective weakness (I'll cry even when what I'm watching is mawkishly sentimental and obviously emotionally manipulative); just know that your own mileage may vary.

The movie isn't without problems, though. Any story that involves magical realism has to establish clear rules as to how the magic works: consistency keeps us viewers grounded and allows us to suspend our disbelief. "Encanto" sometimes fails in this, as when the Casita animates itself to help the family play, prep meals, etc., but suddenly doesn't help Mirabel when she enters Bruno's secret domain. I don't recall a clear explanation being given as to why the house suddenly fails to help. Mirabel is established as not having received any powers from the magical candle, and this presents two problems: (1) Abuela seems to resent the fact that Mirabel is little more than dead weight (much of the movie's conflict is between Abuela and Mirabel), but you'd think Abuela would relate to Mirabel since Abuela, too, lacks powers; (2) if Mirabel has no powers, how and why is she the recipient of these visions about the Casita cracking and falling apart? Also, when Mirabel first learns about a vision Bruno had involving her, she sees the vision imprinted on an emerald-colored glass, but later on, when Bruno invites her to participate in a vision-conjuring séance, no such glass is involved. Why? In addition to that, as the plot resolves itself toward the end of the story, I couldn't help but notice certain loose ends that didn't get neatly tied up, such as Luisa's anxiety—expressed earlier in the film—about being super-strong yet not being able to do enough work to help the family. You also have to think that poor cousin Dolores, who has super-hearing and loves gossip, will be slowly driven insane since she can hear a person's eye twitching from all the way across the Casita's vast property. That sort of sensory overload must take a toll.

I did admire the fact that the movie was smart enough not to end with Mirabel (whose name means "wonderful" or "wondrous," as in the Latin formulation mirabile dictu, i.e., "wonderful to say") suddenly receiving powers. One of the movie's moral lessons is that real miracles are located in the everyday: special powers aren't miracles; how we lead our lives, though—that can be miraculous or not. The ordinary is miracle enough. This is a very Zen insight.

I'll end on a quirky theory that came to mind, and which I confirmed online as being shared by many other viewers: the idea that the candle (and/or la Casita) represents the soul of Mirabel's grandfather Pedro, that it's Pedro's spirit that animates the house, Pedro's spirit that keeps the magical candle forever burning. A lot of other people online seem to think this way, too, but I don't know whether Disney has made any pronouncements about this theory. If the theory holds any weight, then the fact that Mirabel didn't receive a special power makes sense insofar as her grandfather understood that Mirabel's value was not sourced in anything magical. If that's the case, then the movie may also be self-subverting: although it's titled "Encanto" (enchantment, spell), the movie's message is that the non-magical is what is truly magical.

Watch "Encanto" and be entertained. It'll make you laugh; it might make you cry, too. The story of a huge extended family reminded me, in some ways, of my French host family, the Ducoulombiers, who are a mess of grandparents, parents, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, and cousins. The story explores some realistic family dynamics, like the idea of a favored or disfavored child, and of overbearing matriarchal figures. There's a touching reconciliation scene that reminded me of family fights and reconciliations from my own history. The story is steeped in magical realism, but also in regular, good old realism. 

Overall, I'd say "Encanto" is worth a watch.

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*While Abuela's grief conjured the magic candle, it's not obvious that she herself is imbued with any sort of special ability because we never see her manifest any other kind of power. More likely, the candle appeared through some sort of divine agency not her own as a response to her grief.