Frozen

2013
Story by Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, and Shane Morris
Screenplay by Jennifer Lee
Directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee

Disney’s take on the Snow Queen tale is an overall positive experience, but I hesitate to praise Frozen as a new classic. Despite some very good twists and themes that throw some classic Disney Princess tropes on their ears, the good parts don’t transform an overall uneven story into something great. Instead, we have something that is pretty good, just not amaze-tastic.

Frozen‘s strength is in its story of sisterly love. As children, Elsa accidentally injures Anna with her snow powers, causing Anna to have part of her memories erased. Ever since, the girls grow up separate, with Elsa hiding away due to her powers, taught to fear and suppress them. Anna is forever wondering why her sister hides away, and no one bothers to just tell her what happened. After the deaths of their parents (this IS a Disney movie!), Elsa comes of age to be coronated as queen, which will be the first time the palace has been open in years.

Anna’s elation at having actual people to interact with causes her to act almost drunk with gittiness, and it helps that one of the first things she does is bump into a handsome foreign prince, Hans. Elsa’s increasingly solemn demeanor (a manifestations of her duties and her worries that her powers will be exposed in front of all the visitors) drives Anna closer to Hans, to where they become engaged that night. Elsa realizes this is crazy, and doesn’t want to give her blessing at such a quick relationship, nor have a giant wedding where more people will be around to possibly expose her powers. This leads to an argument that leads to Elsa accidentally blasting parts of the palace with her ice powers. The powers go out of control, Elsa runs for the mountains, and accidentally freezes the whole town as she flees.

Anna (Kristen Bell) – Anna goes after her sister, desperate to mend their rift, and also to help save the town, which now has a complete ice over in summer. She’s unprepared for such a harsh journey, but is motivated by her surviving memories of fun and love of her sister. Elsa (Idina Menzel) – The newly crowned queen of Arendelle is happier being alone in the mountains, free to use her power and free from accidentally harming anyone with it. Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) – A mountain man who runs an ice business, and lives a solitary life with his reindeer, Sven. He’s hired by Anna to take her up the mountain to the source of the cold. Their relationship starts as the typical antagonistic people from two worlds who grow together as they travel on a journey thing. Kristoff was an orphan, but was adopted by trolls (coincidentally, when he saw the young Anna be healed by trolls) Sven (Himself) – Reindeer owned by Kristoff. Sven loves carrots and pushing Kristoff to do things. Sven does not talk, but Kristoff often has conversations to himself where he provides a voice for Sven. Hans (Santino Fontana) – A foreign prince visiting the town for the coronation, he befriends Anna due to their shared experiences of having older siblings ignore them. He and Anna have a whirlwind romance that ends with them engaged on the day they meet. Hans is put in charge of the town after Elsa flees and Anna leaves to go find her. He does his best to take care of the frozen city, and leads an expedition to find the Queen and save Anna. Olaf (Josh Gad) – A snowman created inadvertently by Elsa when she’s playing with her powers, Olaf resembles the snowmen built by Elsa and Anna as children. He attaches himself to Anna and her party, and is excited about everything. Olaf’s greatest wish is to experience summer, blissfully unaware as to what happens to snowmen in summer.