Encanto (2021)

I decided that my last feature of the year should be something that promised to be uplifting. And preferably short, since I got a late start. This one's 109 minutes, about 19 of which are end credits, with no mid- or post-credit sequence.

It's tricky to gauge the era -- we see donkeys and no cars -- but the place is a Colombian village. Thanks to what is attributed only to a miracle, the Madrigal family lives in a house with a life of its own, and not in a scary way. The Casita, as they affectionately call it, can also endow each Madrigal child with a different superpower in a sort of coming-of-age ceremony, but Mirabel (Stephanie Beatriz) was denied for some reason. Now 15, she tries to maintain a positive outlook despite her relatives tending to feel ashamed of her. Then the miracle shows more compelling signs of fading, between the Casita developing cracks and the family powers gradually becoming unreliable. Will Mirabel save the day, or is she, as her matriarchal grandmother (María Cecilia Botero/Olga Merediz) believes, the cause of the trouble?

As the plot took shape, I recalled a cult comic book character, normalman, the only person in his world without superpowers, who still manages to be a hero. But this can't rightly be called a superhero movie. The Madrigals generally use their powers for party tricks and minor favors. Even when things get tough herein, their powers hardly accomplish a thing.

In fact, Mirabel comes to learn that the people she has envied are not doing so well in their own regard. Putting aside the more obvious downsides, like when the weather controller (Carolina Gaitán) causes storms just by being in a bad mood, the endowed feel a pressure to keep up a flawless impression. It subsequently occurs to me that for all the times I've enjoyed fantasizing about superpowers (including some herein), if I actually had any, the people who knew might expect me to excel at nothing else. And if I followed my specialty too much, I'd be feckless the moment it failed me.

While the Madrigal family is large, there aren't a lot of characters in total, nor does the action move very far from the Casita. I'm afraid there's a reason I haven't named many people: Most have little bearing on the plot and little personality worth mentioning. One of the most important, prophet Bruno (John Leguizamo), doesn't show up until the second half. BTW, he and Alan Tudyk (as a speechless toucan) are the only voice actors whose names I recognized offhand, a scarcity that seems unusual even for Hispanic-centric U.S. flicks. I suppose I should give some credit to Isabela (Diane Guerrero), Mirabel's older sister, who summons flowers at will and comes across as a somewhat nasty Disney princess reject.

I have to say that my favorite character is the Casita. It's highly benevolent and finds suitable ways to express itself. I think I'd want a home like that more than I'd want any of the humans' powers, tho it would run the risk of spoiling me rotten.

The visuals were the first element to draw me in, of course. Even scenes that don't involve the Casita or Isabela are usually colorful if not beautiful. Then there's the music. The eight songs are not the most talented work from Lin-Manuel Miranda -- I might even have liked the ones in Coco better overall -- but after the last few nonmusical Disney animations, I welcome them. And what happens on screen during them, naturally.

I feel like not much happens in the course of the story, as if the writer had more planned and had to pare it down. Fortunately, this kind of goes with what Mirabel is about: What she lacks in talent, she makes up for in heart. As I have learned and relearned over the years, what we can do matters less than what we choose to do. If there's a valuable message in this movie, it's that value exists in everyone. (With that in mind, it's just as well that the only true antagonists are 50 years gone, and we never learn much about them.)

Directors Jared Bush and Byron Howard have both done better, and not just in their collaboration on Zootopia. Still, this wasn't a bad end to my year.