Wish
To celebrate its centenary, Disney releases its 62nd official animated feature, drawing on its traditional hand-drawn look with more contemporary tropes thrown into the mix.
As children’s literature faces a growing revisionist backlash, so Disney is forced to tiptoe through a potential minefield. So, it’s a whole new world in Rosas, a Utopian kingdom where the populace is seemingly well-served by its charismatic sovereign. It is he, King Magnifico, who makes a wish come true for one of his subjects every month. However, the feisty 17-year-old Asha doesn’t feel everything is coming up roses in Rosas and dares to challenge the status quo. On the day of her grandfather’s 100th birthday, she seeks an interview with the king to apply for the job of his apprentice, a sorcerer’s apprentice so to speak. You see, she doesn’t like the fact that no sooner has someone granted King Magnifico their wish, their memory of it vanishes. Her wish, she sings, is “to have something more for us than this.”
Set in an imagined, magical kingdom, Wish is unlikely to step on any sensitive toes. Thus the heroine is of mixed heritage, complete with freckles and Pocahontas hair, and is voiced by Ariana DeBose, outspoken advocate of the LGBTQ+ community. The dashing King Magnifico (Chris Pine, who sang the role of Cinderella’s Prince in Into the Woods) is a more modern villain, too, being a deceitful, power-hungry and narcissistic leader not above spreading fake news. This is not to overlook the film’s high-concept originality, in which a wish is embodied as an anthropomorphic star, much like the emotions in Inside Out and the elements in Elemental. Here, the star that is to be wished upon is given cute rudimentary features and an affecting squeak. The moral is that we should all be able to attain our heart’s desire without relying on the benefaction of a self-appointed autocrat.
Besides evoking the memory of the sorcerer’s apprentice from Fantasia, the film is packed with self-reference, with Magnifico making jokes at the expense of Peter Pan and Mary Poppins. And over the end credits all sorts of Disney characters are animated as night sky constellations, which could make a wonderful quiz for children when the film is released on Blu-Ray (“look – that’s Winnie the Pooh!”). More surprising are the unintentional parallels to Napoleon, from a megalomaniac dictator and a puppet show to the attack on one character by a multitude of rabbits, although the latter event, which in real life supposedly took place in 1807, was omitted from Ridley Scott’s biopic. Pure coincidence, of course.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Voices of Ariana DeBose, Chris Pine, Alan Tudyk, Angelique Cabral, Victor Garber, Natasha Rothwell, Jennifer Kumiyama, Harvey Guillén, Evan Peters, Ramy Youssef, Jon Rudnitsky, Heather Matarazzo.
Dir Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn, Pro Peter Del Vecho, Juan Pablo Reyes and Lancaster-Jones, Screenplay Jennifer Lee and Allison Moore, Ph Rob Dressel and Adolph Lusinsky, Pro Des Michael Giaimo, Ed Jeff Draheim, Music Dave Metzger, Songs Julia Michaels and Benjamin Rice, Sound Nia Hansen.
Walt Disney Pictures/Walt Disney Animation Studios-Walt Disney Studios.
94 mins. USA. 2023. US Rel: 22 November 2023. UK Rel: 24 November 2023. Cert. U.
