Frozen Film Response

As I am typing up this post I have "Love is an Open Door" on full blast. This was probably my 7th time watching Frozen (with the first 6 times having taken place all in the same week that I originally watched it). Frozen took the world by storm when it first came out in 2013, and I was convinced that I wouldn't love it (and I also systematically refuse to waste money seeing movies in theaters), so it took me a little while to see it in the theater. But once I finally did, I too became victim and fed myself to the massive Frozen shark-jaw. I actually blogged about it immediately and thought it would be funny to include here to show my TRUE "film response" immediately upon the first viewing:

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    Frozen is about two sisters that are princesses of the kingdom of Arendelle. The older sister, Elsa, possesses powers to freeze things and create ice but she keeps them a secret. When Elsa becomes queen of Arendelle she runs away after accidentally displaying her powers in front of the whole kingdom, leaving Arendelle in a permanent state of winter. Her younger sister, Anna, runs after her to try to get her to come back home and undo the curse. Along the way Anna meets a young ice seller, Kristoff, and a talking snowman, Olaf. When Anna accidentally gets a piece of ice driven through her heart, she is told that she will freeze to death unless saved by an act of true love.

   Everyone walks into a Disney movie expecting to see some form of a princess fall in love with some form of a prince because that is typical Disney. And what's bad about that? We love it. They do it. We love it more. They do it again. It never fails because Disney always adds something to it. My favorite Disney movies though are the ones that give you something unexpected. The Lion King? Toy Story? Peter Pan? All of these are movie gold. Not that movies like Tangled and Beauty and the Beast aren't, but these stand out to me because they provide a different take on a love story.

   In 2012, Disney released Brave. This movie was a love story, but about the love of a mom and her daughter. I'm sure this appealed to many people, but it was not done to my taste and I was quite disappointed with it. In a similar fashion, Frozen decided to tell a different kind of love story. The love between two sisters. And unlike with Brave, I was not disappointed.


   At the beginning of Frozen, Anna meets the man of her dreams, Han. She leaves him in charge of Arendelle while she goes to find her sister. In the mountains, she meets a man named Kristoff and the audience slowly watches these two fall in love. I've never had to deal with so many "awwws" from the chair next to me (cough Sarah cough) as much as I did during this film. After getting the piece of ice driven through her heart, Anna sets off to find Han so that he can perform his kiss of true love and she will not freeze to death.

   I was told by a friend that the villain is a surprising one in this movie. Because Han had been portrayed as this incredibly nice guy and protector of the country he was left with I expected him to turn out to be the "villain." I thought Han would turn out to not be her true love and we would watch Kristoff give her the kiss that melts Anna's heart. What I got was so much more.

   When Anna realizes that Han does not actually love her she understands she has only moments before dying. The audience watches as Anna chases after Kristoff and Kristoff chases after Anna. Right before they are about to embrace and seemingly kiss, Anna notices her older sister Elsa with a sword held over her by Han. In a single moment, Anna decides to sacrifice herself and save her sister instead of receiving her true love's kiss and living happily. With Anna frozen to death and Elsa crying over her,  the audience watches as she begins melting while Olaf the snowman cries, "An act of true love!"

   An act of true love to change her heart was required. Many expected Kristoff to run into her arms to save her, but it was Anna that saved herself by loving her sister enough to die for her.

   One of Disney's greatest triumphs in the whole movie was the character of Elsa. I cannot think of a movie that Disney has made with a character that experienced such inner turmoil. We watch her shut out her closest friend, Anna, because she feels so alone in the world. She lacks the confidence to melt the winter that she has left Arendelle in and isolates herself from everybody else because she feels she is a threat to everyone's safety. One line that she sung really stuck out to me -"No escape from the storm inside." Elsa feels like there is a monster inside of her. One that will not leave. I think this character is universal. No, maybe not everyone feels alone because they are the only person with the ability to freeze a country, but everyone feels alone in some way. And just as Elsa realized that what she felt was okay and that love can overcome anything, so can other people.

   My personal favorite character though? Olaf, the snowman! Hilarious. Cute. All around perfection. Anna was also great as she had a personality different from what we've seen before in Disney princeses. An awkward, funny girl who knows what's important.

    My one criticism? KRISTOFF! The character was great of course, no complaints there, but come on Disney! Jonathan Groff, the voice actor, is an incredibly talented singer and what did he get? One song. I personally would like to listen to an entire soundtrack just by him but as I realize that's asking too much, I think 2 songs would have sufficed.

As I bring this blog post to an end I leave my millions and millions of readers with this... Go. Watch. Frozen.
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So yes, I clearly still loved it and a lot of this holds up. I do feel very strongly about the strong story that was told about social stigma with Elsa and felt they did a great job showcasing the effects of "inner evil" creating social isolation. However, I firmly believe though that Anna is the greatest triumph of the movie. She is one of the most relatable, hilarious heroines that we have come across and I love whenever a princess has reddish hair because its not as common. And, having just watched Wreck It-Ralph, I remember the whole time just being reminded that there is no better "villain" reveal than this movie. Sure, he wasn't as developed, but I think that is what made the surprise land so well.

From a racial perspective, it is very easy to point out the lack of diversity in this film. But I know that Disney wanted to represent the Scandinavian countries and frankly, it is probably pretty true to form that those countries are not going to have a lot of diversity. Anna's hair-color was probably stretching the truth a little bit! But, it does leave a lot of questions about why this film was so much more popular than The Princess and the Frog.

I think that this is one of the strongest showings of gender in a Disney movie and I am so happy that this is the one little girls became obsessed with. I really hope that the financial success of this movie will forever be a fallback when Disney looks at the foundation of a "successful" movie.