AndrewBloom
CONTAINS SPOILERS/10 5 years ago
[7.4/10] There is a certain Pixar magic. Towards the end of the film, once the crazy adventures are mostly adventured, and the major antagonist has been subdued, those manipulative show-offs reach out and tug on your heartstrings like a hungover twenty-something pulling down the shades. I am, however cold and cynical my heart may be, no where near immune to their charms.
So when Miguel sings his great great grandfather’s song to the person it was written for, and she wakes from her forgetful stupor to sing along, and brings out both the letters that tell his story to the world and the torn photo that’ll save his life (er, afterlife), it hit me hook line and sinker. *Coco* earns that moment. It earns that sentiment. And the afterglow of a family reunited, of feuds resolved and wounds mended, of music being a bridge to remembering one's ancestors rather than a wall between them, it’s easy to get swept up in that emotional swell and call the whole thing great.
But *Coco* wanders and stumbles to get to that point. It doesn't make that ending any less boffo, any less emotionally piercing, and yet it doesn't wipe away the standard wild and wacky adventure and trite theme the film uses to build to that point. If it leads to that extraordinary finish, it can’t be all bad, but it can’t help but leave you wondering why the rest of the movie can’t match that standard. It’s a pretty good movie with a pretty great ending.
Still, pretty good is *pretty good*! The film tells the story of a young boy named Miguel who loves music, to the chagrin of his tune-hating, shoe-making family. After a *Footloose*-esque tiff, he crosses over to the land of the dead during Dia de los Muertos, and after meeting his bony ancestors there, has to figure out how to resolve his musical passion and the importance of family.
That’s a hell of a presence! The best thing about *Coco* is its world. Very quickly, the film establishes what its rules are: when the ancestors can cross over into the world of the living, why you can stay in the afterlife vs. facing “the last death”, how the family blessing rules work to send Miguel back to the real world. All of these little strictures and regulations make for an interesting set of obstacles for our hero to have to leap over, and to build a story about family and memory around.
More than those magical laws, the land of the dead is just a cool little ecosystem. However predictable the story beats might be, you can always count on Pixar to wow you in the visuals department, and *Coco* doesn't skimp on that front. The glowing, multicolored world that the dead occupy is a feast for the eyes, with distinctive shapes, movements, and style. From the skeletal residents to the mural-skinned spirit animals to the bridge between worlds, it’s a joy to spend time in the afterlife.
The catch is that the story set there is no great shakes. The film hammers home the point that Miguel wants to be a great musician and that his family doesn't approve of it over and over and over again. There’s a lot to be said for having a main character with a clear, driving motivation, but *Coco* underscores the conflict so often that eventually it becomes rote. Everything hinges on that one drive, which makes for a good Aesop’s fable about the importance of making room for other things, but not necessarily a great overall story.
There’s also a fairly predictable reveal at the center of the narrative where, as in *Up*, the young boy’s idol turns out to be a selfish jerk who turns murderous and inadvertently teaches the protagonist to appreciate his familial connections over his grandiose aims. Once you figure out that Hector must be Miguel’s long lost great grandson, not De La Cruz, the movie’s vagary and convenience whenever anyone’s discussing the topic starts to feel corny and contrived. There’s a laudable lesson of learning that your heroes are flawed and there’s more to life than your individual passion at the core, but turning that whole thing into a secret murder story weakens the lesson, and puts a standard good guy/bad guy dynamic at the forefront rather than the maturation of Miguel or Hector.
Still, this is Pixar, so the script is fundamentally sound. Even if the twists seem overly telegraphed and the relationships destined to be mended, every setup has a payoff and vice versa. We learn of Miguel’s love for the linchpin song of the film, “Remember Me” in the film’s early going. We learn a little more than halfway through that, in actuality, Hector wrote it for his daughter. And in the end, we see Miguel playing the song to his abuelita Coco to remind her of her father, in the film’s best and most affecting scene. Whether it succeeds on every score, the entire movie is built like that, with minor details and important precursors established in time for them to come back in a big way down the line.
Along the way, there’s also the trademark Pixar whimsy that makes the proceedings more enjoyable even where the narrative becomes a bit trying. Dante the dog is an animator’s delight, all floppiness and spunk, and his reveal as a secret spirit animal is a delight. “Cameos” from Frida Kahlo and Santo help the world feel populated (and even come back in a relevant way in the film’s climax). And the whole picture taps into Mexican culture in a fashion that makes the entire story richer and more distinctive.
There’s just a moment when the credits have rolled, and the afterglow of family reunions and memory-restoring songs wears off, that you remember the clunky (bony?) path the film took to get there. Themes like the need to balance your passions with your family, and the importance of honoring the memories of those who came before are strong, but also come off a bit trite in delivery. The bulk of *Coco*’s melody is filled with repetitive licks and the odd, fumbling pluck, which makes it harder to bob your head along from beginning to end, but it does hit one hell of a final note.
