The story is loosely based on Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale, The Snow Queen. Disney had tried to develop an adaptation for over ten years but found it problematic. The version realized here is quite different from the original tale, but it keeps the frosty scenery, as well as the main themes of strong friendship which never gives up and the power of love to overcome evil. In the original, the main characters are the Snow Queen, who is clearly a villain, and two friends, a boy who is cursed when a fragment of ice from the Snow Queen pierces his heart, changing him and causing him to run away, and a girl who journeys far to find him. In Disney's adaptation, there are two main characters, princess Elsa, who was born with the magic ability to create ice and snow, and princess Anna, her younger sister.
The beginning of the film is charming yet bittersweet, as it introduces us to the Nordic-inspired land of Arendelle and its royal family. We see Elsa and Anna's strong childhood relationship, which then becomes estranged when Elsa accidentally injures Anna during a play snowfight. Elsa begins to hide herself away in the palace, afraid of injuring her sister further, and Anna, while growing into a spunky young lady, also grows more and more lonely without her sister. Things come to a head at Elsa's coronation ball. Anna is excited by the festivities and the prospect of being surrounded by people, and she almost instantly finds what she believes is true love. Meanwhile, Elsa is trepidatious at the thought of trying to conceal her powers from so many people. She becomes overwhelmed during the ball, and lashes out with a fury of snow and ice, revealing her magic—and accidentally encasing her entire kingdom in an enchanted winter.
Elsa flees to the mountains, where she conjures an entire castle of ice, and there she resolves to live out the rest of her days, alone but empowered to finally be who she wants to be. The movie's most powerful showtune, 'Let It Go', is introduced during this scene, and I promise you will be singing it days later. Anna follows, with the assistance of Kristoff, an ice salesman, Sven, his trusty reindeer, and Olaf, an enchanted snowman produced unwittingly by Elsa's powerful imagination. From this point on, the audience is taken on a roundabout adventure through the mountains, up to Elsa's castle, across chasms, and back to the palace, all the while accompanied by beautiful scenery, slapstick comedy, and a bevy of coming-of-age lessons.
To tell much more would be to give away many of the surprising twists the movie holds, but suffice it to say that Disney throws most of the rules out the window with this one. You may have noticed the recent trend of titling princess movies not by name (à la Cinderella), but by adjective. Thus, Rapunzel becomes Tangled, and Merida is styled as Brave. Are the marketing folks trying to avoid alienating boys? Or is someone making a statement about what "today's princess" allows to define her?
With Frozen, we have not just one princess to observe, but two. Elsa's character is more complex than the average animated leading lady; though she is one of the movie's heroines, her role also contains shades of the villainous snow queen from the original tale. She has to learn how to use her magical powers for good, an ability which eludes her for quite some time, and she spends much of the film alienated from the people of Arendelle. Anna is multi-dimensional as well. On the surface she seems childlike and naive, full of romantic dreams and ready to be swept off her feet at a moment's notice. But her happily-ever-after storyline contains many detours, as well as an ending with unexpected depth.
So what do you get when you mix a needs-no-prince sister with a gets-engaged-to-the-first-prince-she-sees sister? A story that turns out to be about sisters rather than princes, which is still surprisingly enchanting and successful at teaching us about the power of true love.
Susannah
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