We were roughly twenty minutes into
Frozen, watching the
brown-haired sister (voiced by Kristen Bell) sing a duet with her
beau, when I realized my kids weren't showing me a movie. They were
showing me a Broadway musical disguised as a movie. About ten
minutes after that, while watching Idina Menzel's Ice Queen belt out
a full-throated (and Oscar-winning) “Let it Go,” I realized they
were showing me a particularly good Broadway musical disguised as a
movie. They ate it right up, and so did I.
Here's
what makes Frozen a
particularly good Broadway musical disguised as a movie: the songs,
the story, the sets and costuming, and the performances.
Robert
Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez wrote the songs. Between them, they
boast 'The Book of Mormon,' 'Avenue Q,' 'The Wonder Pets,' 'Winnie
The Pooh,' and 'In Transit.' Robert Lopez has an Emmy, a Grammy, an
Oscar, and a Tony. These people know what they're doing, and what
they're doing in Frozen is writing show tunes. These songs
have great hooks, catchy choruses, and singability written all over
them – just try listening to “Fixer Upper,” sung in the movie
by a chorus of Scandinavian rock trolls, and not imagining a bunch of
12-year-olds in homemade costumes. I dare you. And if you happen to
be one of the few people who still haven't heard Frozen's big
anthem, “Let it Go,” well, get ready for an ear worm that'll play
in a constant loop for days.
The
story has a story of its own. Re-pitched in the wake of Disney's
successful The Little Mermaid, an adaptation of Hans Christian
Andersen's The Ice Queen
had been knocking around the Mouse House since 1943. The picture got
a green light in 2011, and the story went through multiple iterations
involving many people before it got to the version we see today. And
that version? It's a near-perfect combination of family tension,
romantic interest, villainy, and magic. Best of all, it does
unexpected things with those elements. The family tension is about
two sisters who love each other so much that it's simultaneously
pushing them apart and pulling them together. The romantic interest
zigs one way, then zags another, then zigs and zags a few more times,
helping the audience mirror the conflicted feelings of the
protagonist. The villainy, well, it's wonderful. There's Alan Tudyk
(CDNW), voicing a character that's just a perfect weasel. And
there's -well, you're going to have to see it for yourself. And the
magic? It delights in that it plays more like something from an
X-Men movie than a fairy tale. But those are just the elements.
Frozen's
unique charm springs from the way it lulls the audience with its
first act simplicity, setting up all the pieces and archetypes for a
pleasant if predicable story, then combines and recombines those
pieces in unexpected ways while taking the story in fresh directions.
I am used to watching children's movies for execution over story.
Frozen
offers both.
The
sets and costuming are the result of a combination of extensive
research, artistic sensibility, and technical brilliance. Animators
visited Norway to get a sense of Scandinavian architecture,
wilderness, and maritime culture. It's one thing to look at pictures
of a fjord; it's quite another to see one for oneself. They traveled
to Wyoming to understand how people move in deep snow in a variety of
different styles of dress, from ball gowns to traditional Nordic
furs. They visited a Canadian ice hotel to see how ice architecture
really works. Then, they took all this and combined it with Ice
Queen designs from the Disney archives, their own original artwork,
and technical tools like Matterhorn, a snow-animation program written
specifically for this film. The result? A beautiful, organic,
seamless world that enriches its story, adds depth to its characters,
and maintains the illusion of reality throughout the film's running
time.
Of
course, the whole thing breaks down if the performances don't
resonate. In addition to the aforementioned Tudyk (CDNW), Idina
Menzel provides a speaking voice for the Ice Queen that's both strong
and vulnerable. Perhaps more importantly, Menzel (who boasts an
impressive Broadway resume) has extraordinary singing pipes. The
Frozen
soundtrack provides a great example of this by including renditions
of “Let it Go” performed by Menzel in the film and the pop singer
Demi Lovato for a radio audience. Menzel blows Lovato clean off the
record, bringing a clarity and technical proficiency that somehow
reminds me of Nat King Cole. And the rest of the cast? Well, not a
single voice or inflection broke the movie's spell. We're talking
about top-drawer stuff.
