Walt Disney Pictures is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2023. This year, they’ve had lots of events at their parks around the world in honor of the occasion. Of course, as one of the biggest film companies in the world, it couldn’t let its centennial pass without making a film in its honor. Since Disney started as an animation studio, this had to be an animated film.
“Wish” was released on Nov. 8 at El Capitan for its Hollywood premiere and throughout the United States on November 22. The official trailer described it as “a story a century in the making,” and I didn’t realize just how true that was until I watched the film. I was expecting a few nods to past Disney releases amid the usual lack of originality in story development. Instead, the film is a series of “Easter Eggs,” references, and parodies of previous Disney releases, both old and recent, strung together with an underdeveloped story.
While the female protagonist was annoyingly similar to the main character in basically every Disney movie released during the past decade, the villain’s relationship to most of the other characters reminded me of a central character in an old movie. This classic film isn’t a cartoon or even a Disney release. It’s a very serious MGM film from the 1940s, which reveals how much potential for story development Disney missed in its new film.
The Latest
“Wish” is Walt Disney Animation Studio’s 62nd animated film. It’s only the eighth to receive a PG rating from the Classification and Rating Administration, although at least seven previous films have deserved a harsher rating than G. The film was co-directed by Chris Buck, who has directed hits like “Tarzan” (1999) and “Frozen” (2013), and Fawn Veerasunthorn, who never directed a feature film before this. The story and screenplay were written by a standard Disney team, but, unlike most of their previous animated films, it wasn’t based on any existing story. The cast included the voices of Ariana DeBose, Chris Pine, and Alan Tudyk, to name a few. The animation style is a blend of traditional 2D-animation and the currently standard 3D-animation. It features an original soundtrack of songs in a pop style by Julia Michaels, Benjamin Rice, and JP Saxe.Asha (DeBose) is a 17-year-old girl living in the idyllic island kingdom of Rosas who wants to become the new apprentice to the beloved king, Magnifico (Pine). This magician receives his subjects’ wishes when they turn 18, keeping them in magical blue bubbles in his palace, while they are left with hopeful ignorance of what their wishes were. Occasionally, Magnifico has a wish ceremony, in which he magically grants the wish of a random subject. Every citizen of Rosas lives in hopeful anticipation that one day his wish will be granted, including Asha’s grandfather, Sabino (Victor Garber). Since it is his 100th birthday, Asha uses her interview with Magnifico to ask him to grant her grandfather’s wish, but he responds that it is too dangerous. Asha immediately sees through his whole deception of benevolence, realizing he only grants the few wishes which benefit him and leaves the rest of his people with an empty, unfulfilled hope. She determines to get her grandfather and mother’s wishes back, with the help of her seven motley friends, her pet goat (who later starts talking), and a wishing star which falls from the sky.
That rough plot outline probably raises a lot of questions for you. Unfortunately, very few of them are answered during the rest of the film. Instead, more are raised as the plot follows a predictable conclusion without providing many explanations for some of its stranger points. We’re just supposed to take it at face value and enjoy the nostalgic magic. That’s a little hard to do, however, when the whole film feels like a mashup of every Disney film ever made, minus the charm. The most interesting character to me was Magnifico, at least in terms of potential. Unfortunately, he was written in the most obvious way possible, missing the opportunity to explore how he came to power and develop his relationship with his adoring wife, Queen Amaya (Angelique Cabral). The underused opportunities can be seen in a classic film with a similar character, “Keeper of the Flame” from 1942.
The Greatest
“Keeper of the Flame” was the second movie Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn made together. It was directed by George Cukor, and the screenplay was written by Academy Award-winning writer Donald Ogden Stewart, based on the novel of the same name by I. A. R. Wylie. The supporting cast included some fairly obscure character actors, including Richard Whorf, Margaret Wycherly, and Forrest Tucker. One of the most memorable supporting actors is 11-year-old Darryl Hickman, playing a traumatized boy. The film received mixed reviews and earned a decent profit, but its greatest achievement was stirring up controversy. Upon its release, Republican politicians considered it leftist propaganda.During the early days of World War II, the country mourns the death of national hero Robert Forrest. World-weary war correspondent Steven O’Malley (Tracy) determines to write a book about the great man’s life, but his widow, Christine (Hepburn), refuses all interviews. With the help of the gatekeeper’s boy (Hickman), who insists he caused Forrest’s tragic car crash, Steven sneaks into the estate. He is struck by the mysterious beauty of Mrs. Forrest, who remains uncooperative, but her late husband’s sinister secretary (Whorf) pressures her to work with O’Malley after her leaves. Steven is very happy to be admitted to the Forrest home and begins his research, but every answer he receives raises a dozen new questions. Steven realizes he is untangling a web of lies.
Magnifico can be said to be a caricature of Robert Forrest, a beloved public hero who is secretly only serving his own purposes. Both men have deceived an entire nation for years, convincing everyone their only goal was helping others. Although Forrest dies before the movie begins and thus is never seen onscreen, his personality is a much stronger presence than Magnifico’s. Both men’s wives struggle with the discovery that their beloved husbands, whom they once worshipped, are not the good men they thought them to be. Ultimately, each wife decides to destroy her husband’s power for the greater good. Both men came from hardship and probably were good people at one point, but a lust for power corrupted them.
Asha in “Wish” plays the same role as Steven in “Keeper of the Flame:” the outsider who adores the powerful man and tries to gain access to his inner sanctum to help his legacy, only to discover that everything he (or she) ever believed about him was a lie.
Mixed Messages
“Wish” sends very mixed messages. Is it another jab at patriarchy because of its evil male ruler? Is it an insightful allegory about the way governments control people by sporadically granting their desires? Is it an exposé of Disney’s own corrupt fantasy world? Is it an underhanded attempt to teach children all of their wishes should automatically be granted? Or is it a hastily mashed together collection of references to earlier Disney films?Perhaps all these statements are true of this new film, at least in part. If you want to see this story told with depth and intelligence, I suggest you watch “Keeper of the Flame,” which isn’t necessarily leftist but a shockingly accurate description of how enemies of democracy operate within the United States. If you want to enjoy some nostalgia from Disney’s most innocent days, just watch “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”
