I know it's a weird place to start with a critique of a children's movie, but with its wide appeal and many awards, how can I not talk about this movie? As a mother with a rather musical, free-spirited two year-old, I get to watch kids' movies over and over without the "I'm too old for this" opinion.
Now, I warn you: If you have not seen Frozen, this is FULL of spoilers.
First, let's give credit to the amazing team that worked on this. They were given an enormous task and were expected to dazzle us. I'd say they did it. They had to study how ice forms, figure out how magic could be show without pixie dust, and make it beautiful and breath-taking. The character development took our traditional ice-cold evil queen and two siblings caught in her spell and transformed it into the timeless bond of sisters and the unexpected friendship of two compatible personalities(Kristoff-Anna). If you go through the character development, you'll see that Elsa started with a cold look, blue hair, frosty dress, angular look, and it almost instantly softened when her hair turned white and she gained a sister. Anna used to be this spunky, almost arrogant, could be smoking a cig, type character, and after a few more tweaks, she kept her bright, sunny demeanor and softened to match and parallel Elsa. Hans was a hard one, being what may be one of the first Disney anti-heroes. He had to look posh, but lower upper-class(12th sibling), and in his story, he IS the hero. His brothers may have been unfit to rule, or he just saw himself as a positive influence on others and took a Dr. Horrible approach, "The status is not quo, and I just... need to rule it."
Opens with a beautiful, powerful tune. And we see little Kristoff working with the other mountain men. In the end, he drags his haul alone with little Sven. Even in the crowd he's comfortable hanging out with, Kristoff is an outcast. No one seems to mind when he runs off after the trail of frost the royals leave.
And then we have our little princesses. Anna is the fun-loving younger sister that can only see the good in the world. This obviously gets her into a lot of danger. Danger she doesn't even care about. She gets her brain frozen, and to isolate spreading, the Trolls had to remove any trace in her past of the cause of it.
Elsa is the older sister, three years difference. She's always had to look after her sister and be conscious of her power. Her focus on all the wrong she could possibly do coupled with her Father's decision to bury the problem rather than face it made her isolate herself in her room. She has shelves full of books and maybe two or three stuffed animals, a window to sit by, and some ambient decoration. Without being able to associate with anyone but her fear and her storybook characters, she learned to keep to herself and hide the big personality that she kept inside.
Their parents are some characters who meant well, but dealt with problems in horrible ways. The easiest to analyse is their father, as he actually speaks a couple times. Elsa's Daddy's Little Girl, so she always turned to him when she was scared or didn't know the answer. He made the decision to hide her powers rather than let Anna find out when the time came, as well as refusing to let Elsa actually experiment. His intentions were to keep his family and his people safe. Well meant, bad choice. Their mother, on the other hand, spoke once. All we see of her is reacting to their first-born. It's clear she favors Anna, and if you watch her face while they consult the trolls, you can see she starts to fear Elsa. When their father decides to lower the staff and hide her away, their mother looks not to the father, but at Elsa, not with hate, but in a way that his rather extreme, instant decision was justified against their daughter who could potentially harm people. And when Elsa's saying "It's getting stronger" and shouts "no!" her mother step backs and gasps as though she expected a shard of ice to hurt her husband or herself, then she places her hand on her husband reassuringly. I gather that she loved the sweet little girl with all her heart, but her head told her to fear her for the magical being she was.
Then three years after their death the gates open for the first time since the funeral. Anna had gotten used to being a homebody, and Elsa's fear had trained her to be a kenneled dog, content in her little world. While one looked at the change as an opportunity for good, the other feared it as a chance to accidentally hurt someone.
I'm going to generalise from here on out. Elsa makes it through the coronation and most the party. When Anna surprises her with their engagement, to avoid escalated emotions and risk of exposure, she cuts the party short. With Anna's confrontational personality and the prospect of going back to a lonely life, she, of course, protested. While they still had some good moments during the party, Elsa's focus was on the one negative moment, and that lead to her self-inflicted exile.
While away from others, she freed herself. Boom, Big character hidden in a tiny, closed-off shell.
She's a very "in the moment" character. She lets her emotions show and pursues a problem if she notices it. This is what causes the initial fight with Elsa. Normally since she's a good-hearted person, it keeps her in good graces, like with the Sauna-man, but it can lead to many issues, like with Marshmallow.
Anna always means well, but she's very forward and likes to face problems head on with one method. Without planning alternatives, she charges head-on towards her sister. She picks up a homeless guy and his pet, and she makes them take her into danger. Being the "woman" she is, she uses guilt and money to get a guide. She doesn't notice it, but it's done.
She does take responsibility for anything that could have been caused by her. She goes to fix the fight she had, she replaces Kristoff's shed, and she deals with Hans once she realises how she misjudged him. That is what makes her a princess worth following. She's ditsy and wears rose-colored glasses, but she always fixes what she's done wrong.
Kristoff happens to be a rather simple guy. He doesn't deal with social norm or keep up with hygine. He's got his morals and takes care of his family, but doesn't need anyone else. While keeping his wits about him, he's caught off-guard by actually starting to like this girl.
Hans is a character who's oft seen as the conniving bad guy. Really, he's the youngest of twelve, forgotten and left out of everything. He's born of royal blood and just wants people to care. He smiles when he meets Anna because he came to Arendell in hopes of making the queen his bride, and he meets this sweet quirky girl that he could actually love. Having a plan and being happy with the elements involved isn't very common. He would have had to act happy and loving until a point in time where he could confess he only did it to be king. He figured he would make his people love and adore him, helping everyone he could, working to fix any corruption (Weasle-town, anyone?) and seeing a danger in the kingdom(Elsa) he rises to the challenge. He knows full-well that he alone can't face her, and that's why Anna is no match for her. He even brings her back to fix the problem. The only moment he is "evil" is when he thinks the fool who fell for him was dying. He was venting his negative emotions and building hisself up in his own head to combat the grave danger facing the kingdom. When he goes to swing the sword at Elsa, he's grimacing because swords are heavy. He's doing the right thing, in his and the councils' minds. At the end, we get a moment of confusion out of him because the only person who has seen him at his low point comes back from the dead.
In the end, Elsa realises she needs to relax and use positive emotion to create positive reactions. Anna still doesn't grow up, but she's fallen in love with a man whose faults and virtues even her out, so that's okay.
I almost forgot Olaf. Hes intelligent and has nothing but love for everyone and everything. While his comments like, "Oh look. I've been impaled." make him seem foolish, he's really quite smart. He can't be hurt, and he tries to use that as an advantage. He finds loopholes in Anna's commands and knows that reminding Elsa he was made from her should help her feel more comfortable with positive emotions. Be cause of him, she knew she could make Marshmallow, a guard who wouldn't hurt anyone. All he does is spread smiles and love.
It's not the story that makes this such a great movie, it's the characters and how their personalities make the story. There were plenty of right and wrong choices, but in the end everyone with good intent was happy, except Hans. He's doomed to go back to being picked on by his older brothers.
