It’s Musicals Week at IndieWire. With “Wicked” about to sparkle over theaters, we’re celebrating the best of the movie-musical genre.
At first glance, the contours of Vicky Jenson’s “Spellbound” seem familiar enough: an animated family-friendly musical, the film takes place in a verdant magical land (Lumbria) populated by all manner of delightful beings, from flying dragons that look like chubby cats and plucky princesses who are just trying to balance their own desires with serving their citizens. But not all is as it seems in Lumbria, and after “Shrek” director Jenson (armed with a script by Julia Miranda, Lauren Hynekm and Elizabeth Martin) introduces us to her latest fairy tale, she quickly pulls the (magical) rug out from underneath this (prescient) piece of pop culture.
It is Princess Ellian’s (voiced by Rachel Zegler) fifteenth birthday, and while we may initially be caught up in her seemingly everyday teen high-jinks — no, not everyone gets to spend their free time riding around on aforementioned chubby cat dragons, but we all know what it’s like to want to just have some fun with our friends — she’s actually hiding a very big secret. Ellian is feeling the stress of being a powerful kiddo, and it’s not just because she’s a rising ruler: for the last year, we soon learn, she’s basically been running the show. And why is that?
Turns out, a year ago, Ellian’s beloved parents — King Solon and Queen Ellsmere (voiced by Javier Bardem and Nicole Kidman in one heck of a “Being the Ricardos” reunion) — were turned into monsters. Like, big, hulking, destructive, nonverbal, kind of scary but kind of cute, fuzzy monsters. And while Elllian has a good attitude about it — peppy songs from Alan Menken and Glenn Slater help sell that bent, at least at first — it’s clear from the start that there’s something else afoot, and it goes far beyond Ellian’s belief that her parents’ transformation was due to a spell she can break if she just tries hard enough.
The basic premise of “Spellbound” is clever enough to work on multiple levels: there’s the “Home Alone”-esque charms of a kiddo being thrust into adulthood, the slew of high-quality songs that help push the film along (both in terms of basic story and far more complicated emotion), and the deeper messaging that feels especially timely at this particular period in history. Ellian is convinced that she can find a way to change her parents back (and thus recapture all the magic and joy of their lives pre-monsterhood, delightfully explained by way of Menken and Slater’s song “The Way It Was Before”), but the film takes great pains to gently explain whyexactly her parents were changed and why Ellian’s best intentions can only go so far.
What happens when dark forces destroy the people you love most in the world? These days, Ellian isn’t alone in her concerns and her quest, even if “Spellbound” follows that journey with zippy musical numbers and colorful animated environments. Combining kid-appeal (see: Ellian’s pet Flink, a purple gerbil-type critter who enjoys his own amusing subplot) with more adult-skewing lessons (good intentions only go so far) is a tricky balance to hit, but Jenson and company mostly do it with ease.
Helping things along: a generous dash of fun even in the midst of increasingly fraught story turns, lots of original songs, and a sense of trusting its audience to go along for the ride. Not everything works, and some of those fraught story turns can feel a little blunt (palace workers plan a coup to shove out the monstrous king and queen, the power of “dark feelings” gets oddly literal, an entire sequence in which harsh words physically hurt, the list goes on). But the dance between those elements and the friskier stuff (like a body-swapping storyline involving Flink and a would-be coup-starter, amusingly voiced by John Lithgow) is compelling, and eventually coalesces into a winning, tear-streaked finale.
Cute, creative setpieces do wonders to keep the story moving along — Flink’s body-swapping sing-along sequence is a standout, so too is just about anything with Nathan Lane and Tituss Burgess as a pair of oracles struggling with new technology — as do the wealth of new songs that firmly establish this as a musical with a capital M. Stories that are “timely” or “prescient” may be the norm these days, but “Spellbound” works a little magic to ensure that such messaging, as important as it may be, doesn’t get in the way of a good time for the entire family. That’s another thing we need now, more than ever.
Grade: B
“Spellbound” is now streaming on Netflix.
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