Movie Review: Disney’s Encanto Left Me Encantada

Growing in a Latina household, with powerful mujeres, I kind of felt like Mirabel. Sure, I was adorkable, but I also felt small and useless to what felt like their grandeur. To us, our elders are like “bruja-reinas;” queens with golden crowns, super spells, and an ability to make our lives feel safe and filled with the possible. Out November 24, Encanto perfectly captures what it is to be surrounded by Latina strength while still uncovering what is your own.

Based in Colombia, Mirabel Madrigal (Stephanie Beatriz) , literally, comes from a magical family that has gifts like,  super-strength, healing via cooking, super-hearing, shape-shifting, and the ability to talk to animals. By age 5, they gain their gifts, of which Mirabel never did. While she ADORES her family, now 15, she is perplexed as to why she is so “human” and where she fits in their mystical foundation, which, literally, starts to crack as their home, breathing with its own magical liveliness, begins to breakdown like, their gifts.  As family secrets unfold it is NOT by chance that Mirabel’s humanity is the only key to figuring out their root of their mystical majesty and why it is leaving. Yet, in doing so, Mirabel realizes that family is not perfect, but the true “spell” that bonds them is their ability to love each other despite or even through those flaws. 

Directed by Byron Howard, Jared Bush and Charise Castro Smith, is a “shoe-in” for an Oscar Nod and a must-see for Thanksgiving. Walking away from the film, I felt very similar to when I saw Soul; a deeply impactful film that helped me realize the most “special” thing about you is how you love yourself and how said love manifests itself through the bonds you have with others. Encanto becomes one of my FAVE DISNEY films because its message is to praise your uniqueness and never doubt that in a loving family, no matter how different your members are from each other, it has a place. ISN’T THAT STUNNING?! Add on, Disney’s TYPICAL penchant some of the best, most splendid visual effects in animation, and Encanto proves why Mickey Mouse’s house remains amongst kids and adults. 

I should let you know that I have TWO family members/ fierce Latinas that are GROWN WOMEN with kids and are OBSESSED with Disney: going to the theme park for their honeymoons, vacations, and snatching every souvenir for themselves while claiming its for their kids. As I watched Mirabel and her family BELT Lin Manuel’s magnificent, richly sentimental music, I thought of them and understood why their devotion is eternal. I, too, am an adult and I walked out of that theater like the world was a place I not only belong in, I could thrive in.