Review-ish: Brave (Spoiler-Free)
Brave is a fascinating film from Pixar.
It doesn’t feel quite like what we have expected from Pixar. It’s full of humans. It looks traditional. It starts with a classic traditional tale of the young princess who wants to be free to love as she likes,
And then, it turns. Big time.
It’s pretty much impossible to explain the turns in Brave without spoiling, so I won’t try. But emotionally, we go from feeling very comfortable that we know what’s coming to really not knowing at all.
The hero of our story doesn’t learn passively, a female character who needs a charming prince to come fix her vulnerabilities. She gets herself into trouble… she’s going to have to find her way out. She isn’t offered, by the filmmakers, an easy out with the perfect edgy, but good-of-heart heroic man.
Yet, this is not “a feminist film.” It is a film in which the hero happens to be female. We’ve seen this film in reverse many times. The prince doesn’t want to marry the politically expedient princess from another realm. But as you might expect here, there is usually a great beauty under the veil, somehow making the sting go away instantly. Or the prince goes oak a journey to prove his manliness before returning home to fulfill his duty… and again, tends to be comforted by a great beauty and perhaps, wit.
Not so easy in Brave.
Thing is, the movie is not self-serious. It is not in love with breaking ground for women in animation. There is still hair on the witch’s chin. There is still some funny anthropomorphism. There is also a lot of very broad comedy. (And perhaps more nudity than in any Pixar or Disney film ever.) Belching, farting, drinking, fighting, screaming, dancing… it’s all there.
My experience of Brave changed as I watched the film. I liked it, but wasn’t in love in the first act. It felt a little simple and Disney-familiar. But as things turned, I got more interested. And by the time things were heading to the climax of the story, Brave grabbed me harder and harder,
No smart alecky Tangled this. This film has the emotional weight of great child/parent sagas. What parents want to know about their kids… what kids dream they could see other parents. Weighty stuff. And the pressure is on for each side to find its own answers.
Smart stuff. And I think it will just get better with multiple showings.
“Yet, this is not “a feminist film.” It is a
film in which the hero happens to be
female. We’ve seen this film in reverse
many times. ”
I feel like we’ve seen the fiercely independent female protagonist a hundred times (though not from Pixar directly), so I’m not quite sure where the novelty is here.
It would be nice to see Pixar back to form after what was, imo, their first real misstep with Cars 2 (I liked the original).
Looks like a limp marriage of Shrek and every other disney.
It’s no ‘How to train your Dragon’ and it could do with a few more gags as good as the ones in ‘Tangled’ but it’s a perfectly serviceable kids movie. There’s lot of loud bang crash style humor but not that many great set pieces and the film takes a long time to actually kick into gear (the switch DP mentions). It all feels quite small in terms of scope for a story that supposedly encompasses clans, quests and more.
David, thank you for actually reviewing the movie, and not what you were expecting from the movie.
“I feel like we’ve seen the fiercely independent female protagonist a hundred times (though not from Pixar directly), so I’m not quite sure where the novelty is here.”
The first “fiercely independent female protagonist” in a Pixar movie?
Arguably, most modern-day female characters are ‘fiercely-independent’, it’s the plot turns that they are placed in that makes their films ‘feminist’ or not. It doesn’t matter how ‘strong/independent/smart/feisty/etc’ the female character is if she’s purely there as a love interest, ends up being held hostage in the third act, ends up as a ‘woman in refrigerator’, etc. Random example is Super 8, where critics all raved about how cool Elle Fanning’s character was without acknowledging that she’s A) purely there for boys to fight over her and B) spends the entire third act as a hostage waiting for the hero to save her.
I would agree that there are any number of strong female characters in the Pixar universe (Elastagirl, Jesse, Atta, etc.) but we can argue how well those characters are treated in the mostly male-centric narratives. I kinda love the finale to A Bug’s Life, where Atta has to rescue Flik from Hopper’s grasp, which makes perfect story sense as well as being a turn on genre convention. There is indeed a tendency to trumpet every interesting female lead in a genre film as the ‘best/greatest/most feminist’ ever, as we see when every new 007 film comes out (the Bond girls as a whole haven’t been passive since Roger Moore came on board). There is also a tendency to compare every female character to every other female character, as if (not having seen Brave yet, so I may be wrong) Melinda has all that much in common with Katniss Everdeen and/or Lisbeth Salander other than being aggressive female leads in genre films.
Yeah… almost no relation at all to issues in the worlds of Kaniss or Lizbeth.
It shows how pathetically unbalanced cinema is that any female lead with action goes in a single box.
That said and now that I think about it, there is some connection to the lead of Prometheus… passionate and well-intended, not in control as much as she’d like or think. However, her mother’s role is nothing like Prometheus… or anything else I can think of right now… which really does make Brave one of a kind.
“The first “fiercely independent female protagonist” in a Pixar movie?”
DP obviously wasn’t referring to Pixar movies only. He said that “we’ve seen this film in reverse
many times,” and mentioned the prince/princess dynamic, which Pixar has never done.
Brave certainly may have taken a novel approach with this character, I just wanted more clarification on how DP thinks this is so.
Probably bullshit theory, but anyone think that ANNOYING accent is going to bother kids and audiences?
Might be a superficial Jeff Wells kinda thing, but I HATE the Scottish accent. Find it EMBARRASSING to listen to. Just really rubs me the wrong way. Every time I get this trailer and hear this SPITFIRE with that dorky accent going on about changing her “FAE-EET,” I’m out. I think they should have had her be American, better idea.
Nah, I think a Scottish accent is usually a popular one in movies that people like attempting to do (THAT, on the other hand, IS annoying as Hell, Hades and the underworld combined). It didn’t hurt the popularity of Braveheart, Fat Bastard, Trainspotting, Shirley Manson, etc.
Shrek flopped at the box office because of the Scottish accent. Bullshit theory, yeah.
Yeah Kelly MacDonald’s voice is sooooooooooooooo annoying. Uh huh… no… no it’s not.
Saw it this morning and it is fabulous. Wonderful animation and voice acting from the entire cast. But David’s right, the real test will be how an individual takes the second act plot twist. I went along with it and ended up loving it even more, but I can see some scratching there heads at the rather comedic twist it takes. Perhaps it’s because I genuinely was surprised and somebody who’s been paying closer attention to the production of this movie won’t find it as delightfully out of thin air as I.
What’s really remarkable is how much her hair becomes a major part of her character. In the early scene where it’s all covered up by a headpiece, she looks–and behaves–totally differently. Which is the point, of course. And I love that they speak in period dialogue, not that 21st Century slang that marred the otherwise excellent DRAGON.
Easily Pixar’s best since RATATOUILLE.