Guess who's mad about Frozen again?!
Anna and Elsa are the worst examples of sisterhood. They hardly talk to each other throughout the movie with the exception of their, admittedly cute, bonding in the intro. But then The Plot happens and, their parents being The Worst, actively encourage Elsa into isolation, they actively encourage the sisters away from each other. And yeah, I get it, that's the point, the story needs to happen, but how do they go 9-10 years without talking to each other? How can you look at this movie and be like, "Oh yeah, excellent example of sisterhood and being a family and love and all that?!" They don't talk to each other!
They don't talk to each other growing up, despite Anna desperately wanting to talk to Elsa. Eventually she flat out gives up. Once again, I get it, that's The Point, they both have to move past their own issues in this film and, once again, I admit it works. But only for them as individuals, not as sisters.
They don't speak again until the coronation, where it's, also admittedly cute, awkward and tense, they don't know how to talk to each other anymore. They bond over chocolate of all things and it's actually a good little moment, like meeting up with an old friend you haven't seen since childhood and trying to reestablish a common interest. It's a good scene, probably my favorite in the movie, and it's the only time they have a good interaction. After this, Elsa boots her off to dance with Weaselman where the Hans thing happens (we all know how I feel about Hans, my man deserved better, I won't get into it here), and instead of using this time to build a relationship between Anna and Elsa, whom the movie is supposed to be about, we get a boppy romance number, and some more character about Anna. At this point in the movie, Anna has had too much focus. What we need is Elsa time. What we need is some Elsa and Anna time.
This would have been a great opportunity to build up the relationship between the sisters (the core theme of the movie) instead of a poorly subverted romance subplot. This would have also been a good time to give Elsa some actual character. She's pretty flat, ngl.
The next time the sisters talk is for them to fight over quite frankly the dumbest thing in existence. "You can't marry a man you just met," my ass. We need the plot to move forward in the most contrived way possible because what do they have to fight about when we don't know what they have in common? Had they actually taken the time to speak before we might have actually had a good reason for a fight, like say an actually cute and meaningful moment between the two only for it to take a tense turn when the subject of their isolation finally gets brought up. They could have talked, we the audience could have watched this cute bonding experience build organically and the sisters actually start to learn about each other, only for it to take a tense, dramatic turn that could have actually meant something for the story and for their relationship! God, I'm so fucking mad at this movie, we could have had better!
Anyway, bullshit fight (over a man of all things, even if it's not in the traditional sense) ensues, Elsa's powers are revealed, she runs, Anna tries to stop her, Arendelle's covered in snow, cue fantastic girl power song. Let It Go is amazing, I'm not too proud to admit that.
Anna then leaves Arendelle in the hands of someone acutally capable to chase after her and we get another contrived romantic subplot with Kristoff, with even more contrived parody bullshit over Disney romance (they're kids movies, guys, a little unbelievable romance is the fucking point, it's all fantasy) and Olaf. We get a couple scenes of how Hans is handling the kingdom (pretty well, all things considered (yes, I'm a Hans apologist, fight me)), he comes up with an actual plan, and we're back to Anna and Kristoff. Throughout all this character growth with Anna and her romance options, we get Nothing from Elsa. She gets a song and is cut from the film until Anna shows up outside her fancy ice palace.
Maybe instead of Anna and Kristoff romance bonding, and Olaf (and no one seems to want to talk about how Elsa has the ability to create actual sentient Life and has the powers of a literal god) and getting his I Want song, we could have had a good bit with Anna going up the mountain by herself, finding the strength to push ahead solely for the love of her sister, we could have had some (actual) introspection from Elsa about the nature of her powers, her relationship with them and the relationship with her parents and her sister. We could have had a song where they sing a duet from the top and bottom of the mountain, Anna could have pushed through on her own and over the course of her journey realize that she is a strong single woman who doesn't need a man. I honestly think her journey would have meant more if she had undertaken it completely alone, maybe running into Olaf at some point to liven up this kids movie I'm still mad about. The point is, we didn't need another romance subplot. We needed more time with Elsa and Anna. But most specifically with Elsa.
While Let It Go is a good song, it's not actually very telling. It's about Elsa coming to terms with her powers, and that's good, but it ultimately doesn't mean anything. She regresses the next we see her when Anna shows up. She hasn't come to terms with it. She's still scared of what she can do. If Let It Go really was supposed to be the empowerment song it was supposed to be, then we should have had a brief scene or two of her using her powers in the ice palace. We should have seen her experimenting with them, making ice sculptures and decorations to fill the palace with, basically having fun being able to let loose with them or something.
Think of the scene from Tangled, when Rapunzel sets foot on grass for the first time. It's no big musical number, but instead she's running and frolicking and using her hair for all this new and wild open world to explore. She's in the process of having a mental breakdown for going against Goethel's orders, but she's still just so excited to be free. We spend the entire movie with Rapunzel, watching her get a feel for how hair can work in this new environment. Rapunzel is very similar to Anna in personality, so Anna going off on her own to brave the mountain to find her sister actually alone isn't so far out of the realm of possibility as she has the same drive. Elsa is more reserved, so her being alone to explore her powers works and I personally would have loved to see her make Marshmallow and actually react to the fact that she can create literal life, since she didn't see Olaf come to life.
Kristoff didn't need to be in this movie and I resent his inclusion.
The next time the sisters interact its to Anna telling Elsa she needs to come back and fix things. Immediately jumping straight to the blame game, neither of them take the time to learn anything about the other or understand what the other is going or has gone through. Elsa's powers going out of control makes sense here, but the buildup to it could have been more meaningful, could have made me care a bit more. Arendelle was snow-covered for like two days, they could stand to be covered a bit more for the relationship to build. Then Anna gets hit with ice, Marshmallow chases them off a cliff, bullshit romance subplot, Elsa is captured by Hans (actually a well-done scene, I have no critiques on that).
Once again, their relationship should have taken centerstage. Elsa could have invited Anna in, shown off all these amazing things she can do, Anna taking the time to listen to her for once, to see her actually excited about something rather than a depressed shut in. Anna could have told Elsa all about her adventure, introduced Olaf properly, they could have had a beautiful bonding moment together, this would have been a great place for the relationship to build naturally, and the tension could have risen the longer it went on as Anna tried to break the news of Arendelle, instead of jumping straight to the Plot.
They don't talk again until the end of the movie.
They don't SEE each other again until Anna gets (ha) frozen.
And I honestly don't care by that point. Why should I care that Elsa feels bad about freezing her sister? They had little to no interaction, barely any chemistry to build upon and make me care that they care. Because nothing in the movie tells me they care. It's mostly to blame on the bullshit romance subplot, the whole movie relies on Kristoff and Anna's growing relationship when that's not what this movie is about? It's about sisterhood? Is it? Is it, really???
Frozen spends so much time focusing on Anna and Hans, on Anna and Kristoff, when it should have focused entirely on Anna and Elsa (with a little bit of Hans in there for flavor if Disney really couldn't help themselves, but even then I think it would have been fine without him). This supposed movie about sisterhood lacks in sisterhood so much that it's really just... ya know...
Anyway, Anna is melted by Elsa's love (which I don't believe for a second), Arendelle is unfrozen, and Anna punches my man in the face in a dumb moment of Girl Power (he totally deserved it in the context of the story, I won't lie). And then Anna gives Kristoff a new sleigh, she kisses him to wrap up the bullshit romance, and she STILL doesn't have any meaningful conversation with Elsa. After the intro they have a total of four, FOUR scenes together. In this movie about SISTERHOOD.
Go watch Lilo and Stitch if you want an actual good movie about sisterhood.
