Disney execs recently announced that they will retire the princess genre “for the foreseeable future,” which is a shame because in “Tangled,” opening today, they finally got the princess thing right. After years of tinkering with feminist ideals and multi-cultural stories, only to find the result flat and lackluster, the story of Rapunzel, with a few modern tweaks, fits perfectly into 2010. By discarding nearly everything that makes a classic Disney princess film, they created a formula for new classics and a delightful film for the whole family.
Princess Rapunzel (Mandy Moore) doesn’t know she’s the daughter of the king and queen. As a baby, she was kidnapped and locked in a tower by Mother Gothel, who feeds daily off the lifeforce in Rapunzel’s magic hair. This magic, which keeps Gothel young and looking like Cher but without the botox, is the result the pregnant and sick queen ingesting a bit of magic sun-seeded flower before birthing Rapunzel. (As an aside, this is the only scene I can remember in which a Disney character is rendered pregnant, big belly and all.)
Rapunzel, scared by her surrogate mother’s manipulative tales of horror and danger outside the tower, wavers between chipper and obedient boredom and feverish desire to see the world. Her desires coalesce into longing to see the floating lanterns which, unbeknownst to her, her grieving parents release each year on her birthday in the hopes their beloved child will be found.
A scallywag thief on the lam suspects the lonely tower to be a perfect place to lay low, and Rapunzel meets her first man, Flynn Ryder (Zachary Levi). After knocking him senseless, repeatedly, with a frying pan, and tying him with her hair, the naive but feisty girl coerces him into guiding her to the lantern festival. Mother Gothel isn’t about to let her own personal fountain of youth go so easily.
This drop of sun which infuses Rapunzel’s hair with power is the only magic in the film. Every one else must rely on their cunning, their wits, their strength, their humor, or dumb luck. This is the first change to Princess movie formula.
It most affects the villain, Mother Gothel. Voiced by Tony-award winning actress Donna Murphy, Mother Gothel has no wand, dragon, or magic apple to achieve her nefarious means. Her motivation, nothing less than eternal youth, feels all too real in this world of botox and plastic surgery. She becomes a wonderful Mother Dearest sort of villain, controlling Rapunzel with fear, guilt, and twisted love. A dramatic hand across the forehead is her weapon of choice. “Why must I always be the bad guy?” she sighs. Her song “Mother Knows Best” is a heap of manipulative fun.
Perhaps she’s the perfect Thanksgiving villain for those of us visiting family.
As one might expect being raised by such a mother, Rapunzel is an emotional mess. Unlike Cinderella or Belle, she’s not sure what she wants. The filmmakers use this to hilarious effect when, once out of her tower, she fluctuates between euphoric glee at her newfound freedom and dark despair at the imagined betrayal to her mother. “I’m a horrible person,” she sobs into a bank of wildflowers, and we laugh, knowing the feeling in the hyperbole.
This all sounds dark, but it’s done under such a sheen of gleeful fun that it takes away the edge. One of the best scenes in the film turns the Disney mantra of following your dreams on its head. Cornered in a tavern full of bloodthirsty thugs – the Far Far Away equivalent of a biker bar – Rapunzel pleads, “Didn’t you ever have a dream?” “I’ve Got a Dream” is the musical number that follows. Let’s just say the tune is catchy, the words riotous, and some of the dreams surprising. Wisely, Disney winks at its own overworked and all too often overly-sincere ethos.
Rapunzel’s chameleon Pascal and the relentless police horse Maximus, both mute characters, steal the show with their wry shrugs and expressive body language. Even Flynn Ryder starts as a cocksure, arrogant send up of a Disney Prince, sure that his “smolder” will charm the girl into dazed servitude.
Rapunzel isn’t so easily charmed or dazed. She’s harder to win than prior princesses. Fairy tales are always about something. “Beauty and the Beast:” the civilizing effects of women on men. “Cinderella:” the fantasy of escape from drudgery to wealth. Rapunzel, traditionally, is about a parent’s desire, recognizable to fathers of teen girls, to protect and even overprotect their children. On an extreme literary level, it’s about protecting sexual purity in an era where “letting down your hair” was an intimate act.
Disney leaves behind some of the medieval mores, and makes it about a girl facing her fears of the world. In fact, it’s never occurred to her to wait for a prince to save her, and with that attitude, she transcends the Princess debate that’s been raging for decades. Her conflict is whether or not to risk leaving the tower, which requires discernment of when and when not to trust a man, among other things. She needs Flynn’s help, but not his rescue because he cannot rescue her from her internalized fear placed there by her admittedly dysfunctional mother figure. The conflict, unlike outdated princess concepts of the distant past or forced conflicts of the recent past, resonates with girls because it is true to modern life.
All this, plus breathtaking animation, adds up to something Disney movies have missed in recent decades: fun and insight. Parents will love it along with their children. The humor is appropriate for all ages and the action never gets as intense as, say, “The Little Mermaid,” earning the film a PG rating. This is a Disney princess movie not to be missed. If they were all like this one, the franchise would be humming along.
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