Free Birds and Frozen

So, the last couple of weeks we've been to see some of the seasonal animated fare, partly because it's less likely to spook Arya than the screaming monkeys.

First up was Thanksgiving adventure Free Birds, with Owen Wilson's neurotic slacker turkey Reggie and Woody Harrelson's manly battery escapee Jake teaming up to travel back in time and disrupt the first Thanksgiving, in order to escalate the treatment of the Native American tribes from merely shabby to viciously cannibalistic.

Okay, to 'get turkey off the menu', but who is counting?

The film is pretty up front about its historical inaccuracy, opening with an announcement that nothing is real except the talking turkeys. With that out of the way, it's a jolly enough romp, and even has some depth to it, as Jake learns that the wild turkeys aren't a simple people in need of rescuing, but over all it is unashamedly fluff. I do worry about the notion that no-one would be hunting turkeys if not for the European settlers, which furthers the myth of the Native American 'harmony with nature', especially given the somewhat stereotypical depiction of the Native Americans themselves. I was also a little baffled by the notion that the first thanksgiving was essentially the settlers throwing a dinner party to impress the new neighbours, but I don't have good enough American history to know how off that is.

I was also upset that the straight couple got their happy ending, but the macho gay beta couple just got a moment, although the film still has the most overt and positive homoerotic subtext of pretty much any animated children's film ever.

Last week, we saw Frozen. Now, I only caught Tangled more recently, which is by the same team and has many similarities (in particular Sven the Reindeer clearly owes a lot to Maximus from Tangled), but the story is based on a different fairy tale and is its own beast. It is also beautifully animated, with the same attention to detail lavished on the snow and ice as on Rapunzel's hair in Tangled.

Lifting loosely from The Snow Queen, our story is essentially of two sisters. The elder, Elsa, has magical powers over snow; the younger, Ana, is lively. While playing, Else injures Ana, and while she is saved by the trolls, she has to forget magic and Elsa to retreat from the world until her powers can be controlled.

A painful flash-forward - it's no Up, but watching Ana try desperately to reach her distant sister as they grow older and their parents are lost at sea does tug on the heart strings - leads to the coronation of Queen Elsa, and brings in the supporting cast: A handsome prince, an ambitious trading partner, and Kristoff, a young ice-cutter who witnessed the healing of Ana in the prologue.

When Ana declares her intent to marry a prince she barely knows, Elsa's powers kick off and she flees, leading to the extended third act in which Ana - aided by Kristoff, his reindeer Sven and a magical snowman named Olaf who dreams of summer - search for Elsa, Prince Hans searches for Ana, and plots and schemes are revealled, leading to Ana's second injury by Elsa - as in the fairy tale, the first is to her head, the second and more deadly to her heart - which can only be healed by an act of true love.

Now, getting into spoilers, the payoff on this was what I really loved. Naturally, the fourth act is all about trying to get Ana to her true love's kiss, but in the end what saves her is a display of her own love for her sister, simultaneously lauding familial love alongside romantic and making the princess her own rescuer. Props.