Movie Review: The Princess and the Frog
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
The Princess and the Frog harkens back to an earlier era of Disney animation when everything was hand-drawn. It also manages in typical Disney fashion not to confront the pressing issue of race in the first two decades of twentieth century New Orleans.
This is the story of Tiana, a beautiful little girl who, from the git-go is raised by her parents (voiced by Oprah Winfrey and Terrence Howard) with a stunningly strong work ethic that holds hard work, not “wishing on a star” will get you where you want to go.
Tiana meets her prince
Courtesy of Disney Enterprises
Tiana (first voiced by Elizabeth Dampier; then by Anika Noni Rose) lives a life in sharp contrast to that of Charlotte, her best friend (voiced as a child by Breanna Brooks; as an adult by Jennifer Cody) who is the daughter of Big Daddy La Bouff (John Goodman), the richest man in New Orleans.
On the way to her happy ending, Tiana meets her prince-who-is-temporarily-a-frog, confronts the voodoo of Dr. Facilier (voiced as wonderfully oily and menacing by Keith David) and is forced to spend some time in the bayou with Louis the trumpet-playing alligator and Ray the firefly (enjoyably voiced by Michael Leon Wooley and Jim Cummings, respectively).
As has been much discussed in lots of articles and among talking heads on TV, the big difference between The Princess and the Frog and other Disney features is that the heroine is black.
But, aside from the relative poverty of her family, which is sharply contrasted to the lifestyle of her best friend, the color of her skin and the fact that her Prince Charming is a brown-skinned guy named Naveen who comes from a fictional country, the race of the heroine really doesn’t matter. She looks like Snow White and Cinderella — like a typical Disney heroine — only her skin is darker. And, really, nothing in the story takes race into consideration. (I, truthfully, don’t know if this is or is not a good and appropriate factor in this movie.)
If you go to see The Princess and the Frog and take the kids so they’ll learn some great truth or lesson about race relations in early twentieth century New Orleans, you will be disappointed.
If, however, you go to see The Princess and the Frog for a bit of old-fashioned Disney animation, a tuneful score by Randy Newman (usually Pixar Animation’s go-to guy for music) and a nice musical turn by Ne-Yo, along with some very interesting interpretations of New Orleans-style voodoo, then you’ll enjoy it. The children at the showing I saw were involved and attentive.
On DVD for the Golden Globes
The Golden Globe nominations were announced this week and one performance nominated in the wrong category and one that should have been nominated and that was ignored are now out on DVD.
The nominated performance is Christoph Waltz’as the Nazi colonel in Quentin Tarantino’s terrific take on World War II, Inglorious Basterds. Waltz was nominated in the supporting actor category when his was clearly the lead performance in the film (apologies to Brad Pitt, the nominal lead). Tarantino was also nominated for best director and the film was cited as “Best Motion Picture Drama.”
The performance that should have been cited and that was overlooked was Sharlto Copley as the government functionary Wikus Van De Merwe in the South African apartheid allegory, District 9. He is just stunning and the film itself is very interesting.
If you missed either of these performances, you can catch them now on DVD and, really, if you enjoy movies, you should see them.
(3 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)
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