“I see me… all of me.”
54: Disney Movie Review #3… Encanto!
Warning: OBVIOUS movie spoilers. But, dude, if you haven’t seen Encanto by now, what are you doing? Are you even okay? Go watch Encanto— and I recommend you watch with a supportive loved one.
I connected to this movie before it even premiered because I FINALLY saw a Disney leading lady who looked just like me. When I first saw the teaser trailer that showed Mirabel Madrigal for the first time, I squealed out loud in the hair salon I was in. I told my hair stylist (my sister) that I wanted my hair cut like Mirabel. That day, my annual summer cut got its official role model.
Not only is Mirabel curly-haired, glasses-wearing, and generally emotionally in-tune with others, she is also Colombian! For those who haven’t read my adoption post, my birth mom was adopted from Colombia. This movie was a wonderful way for me to imagine myself in that culture, even though I know it’s not real-life Colombia. (Cue Carlos Vives belting his heart out: COLOMBIAAAA)
A Very Gabby Summary
The movie opens introducing the matriarch of the Madrigal family, Abuela Alma. She is telling a young Mirabel the story of how their family got their magic. Right after her triplets were born, a younger Alma and her husband Pedro had to flee their home, and Pedro “was lost” (she leaves out a lot of the trauma, but we’ll get to that later). Seemingly as a result of this sacrifice, the family receives what they consider a miracle: a safe environment to live in they call their encanto and a huge magical house they lovingly refer to as Casita.
When the children of the Madrigal family reach a certain age, they are gifted their own magical room and, with a touch of the doorknob, they receive their magical gift which could be anything from telling the future to controlling the weather. Abuela puts a lot of pressure on each child (her three children and their children) to represent the family well and devote their time to supporting the community using their special gifts. In doing this, the family has felt the need to strive for a certain degree of perfection defined by Abuela.
After Mirabel introduces her amazing family members and their magical abilities to the village kids (and us: the audience), she is forced to tell them that she is the only member of the family with no magical powers, which we see greatly affects how she is treated by the family and the community. Abuela continuously reminds everyone that using their special gifts makes the family proud and— even though it is not said directly— we hear the underlying message that Mirabel is not making her family proud by not having a gift.
“Whatever gift awaits will be just as special as you.”
— Abuela Alma to young Mirabel
That evening, Mirabel’s youngest cousin Antonio is set to receive his magical gift, if all goes well. The last gift ceremony was Mirabel’s, which ended in no gift, so Antonio’s door glistening in gold as he touched the doorknob resulted in a collective sigh of relief. He had a gift. When her family happily and perfectly poses for a celebratory photo without her, Mirabel internally expresses the biggest desire of her heart: to be blessed with a miracle, like the rest of her family. She knows that she doesn’t have a gift, but she loves her family and wants more than anything to make them proud.
“Always walking alone,
always wanting for more
like I’m still at that door
longing to shine like all of you shine.”
This song is so powerful for a multitude of reasons. (Fun Fact: The voice of Mirabel, Stephanie Beatriz, was in labor while she was recording this song, literally waiting on her miracle!) We see how much Mirabel feels like a burden and an outsider in her own family, continuously being thrown back into the traumatic memory of not getting a gift as a child, to the great disappointment of her family.
As she finishes her song, Mirabel witnesses Casita’s foundation splitting and the magic candle almost going out. She is also hurt by a fallen bit of the house, which her family disregards once they see no evidence of the house breaking. Casita’s cracks had magically disappeared before the family could see, so it is assumed that Mirabel was acting out and they immediately go back to celebrating Antonio’s gift.
Family Therapy, Anyone?
I feel like I can’t go on without explaining more about the family dynamics in this magical household, so I’m just gonna do that.
My opinions of the amazing Madrigal family are as follows:
Abuela: It was really hard for me to like this character at all at first. Even though I know her actions are a trauma response to her husband being tragically killed in front of her after they lost their home, her character hits a little too close to Casita, if ya know what I mean. She demands perfection and is mainly motivated by fear. There is no getting through to her until her house literally collapses in front of her. On my most recent watch, her apology finally felt genuine to me, but her commenting that the new house’s foundation still isn’t perfect at the end of the movie still makes my eye twitch.
Bruno: This poor guy got the gift of telling the future and— even though everyone likes to blame him for the events that he predicted— he has no control over any of it. He is the scapegoat of the family, but he still loves his family. Even after he “disappears” and the family decides never to talk about him ever again, Mirabel learns that he lives in the walls, is secretly patching all of the cracks in Casita, and started hiding in the first place to protect Mirabel from the fallout of a vision he had about her. Though his incredible loneliness has pushed him to befriend rats and take on multiple personalities, he is very sweet and wants to help the family, even if he is no longer welcome in it.
Pepa: Pepa has the magical power of controlling the weather, but her powers are connected to her emotions. If she’s sad, it rains. If she’s anxious, it storms. I very much relate to her, as her emotions are big and impact those around her. Even though Abuela is constantly instructing her to keep her feelings to herself, her husband Felix is a real one and either gently calms her or dances with her in the hail her personal storm cloud created. This pair is #couplegoals.
Dolores: As the eldest daughter of Pepa, I’m sure Dolores was affected by the constant pushback of her mother’s emotions. Dolores’ magical gift is incredible hearing, which led her to become more of an observer than a participant. She knows all of the family secrets, which she sometimes can’t keep to herself. She is sweet, but she is also kind of a zero.
Camilo: Don’t we all have that family member that has a pestering, younger brother energy? Just me? Okay. Camilo’s power is shape-shifting. I’m sure Abuela loves his ability to transform into anyone that others need him to be. But Camilo also enjoys using his power to mess with his cousins or get seconds at mealtimes.
Antonio: This poor little guy is the youngest of the family and there is no doubt in my mind that he feels the tension surrounding him. It makes perfect sense to me that he wanted Mirabel to walk him to his door during his ceremony— facing Abuela is terrifying! And what better way to escape the high-stress humans in his house than to have a literal jungle in his room and the ability to communicate with the animals in there? What a great escape! (Abuela does comment that she isn’t sure how his gift is helpful to the encanto but planned to figure out how it could be. That bitch…)
Julieta: She’s nice and all, with her magical cooking abilities that can heal sickness and literally mend broken bones before your eyes, but she also has never stood up for her daughter. Sure, she gives very sweet kitchen pep talks, but what about the many times Mirabel is being publicly embarrassed or harassed by Abuela? Her sad pout is not enough. The same thing with her husband Agustin, who literally would not be alive without Julieta’s powers (he’s allergic to everything and accident-prone). They need to do more.
Isabela: As the oldest daughter, Isabela feels the intense pressure to be perfect and she succeeds in doing so. She is beautiful, her powers allow her to create beautiful flowers that everyone loves, and she is soon to be engaged to a beautiful man Abuela chose for her. She is exactly what everyone wants her to be, but in doing this, she is not honoring herself. Living a lie is eating away at her and this comes out in her rejection and teasing of Mirabel. Once I heard her song this last watch-through, I finally started to like her. However, she’s just too mean to our homegirl Mirabel for too much of the movie. It makes total sense to me that she isn’t a fan favorite.
Luisa: This girl, however, IS the fan favorite. Much to the marketing team’s surprise, stores ran out of Luisa dolls, Luisa birthday party decor was in the highest demand, and her song was definitely the best of the bunch. It made my heart soar that the bulk of little girls preferred this strong, muscular woman over her mean Disney princess of an older sister. Luisa’s gift is insane strength, but her greatest weakness is the same pressure her sister struggles with. However, Luisa just keeps pushing harder, anxious and unsure that she will be strong enough to hold all they require her to carry. She’s a stressed little cupcake.
Mirabel: Being the only Madrigal with no gift, she already sticks out, but she does have a talent for arts and crafts, as well as genuinely connecting with others. She is eager to please her family and save the miracle, even if no one believes she can. I relate to her more than any character in any Disney movie. We stan Mirabel!
“We swear to always help those around us
and earn the miracle that somehow found us.”
—Abuela
Back to the summary…
When Dolores tells Mirabel that Luisa’s eye had been twitching all night, Luisa confides in Mirabel. Her tough exterior actually covers up an intense, overwhelming anxiety on who she is without her gift. Mirabel comforts her, assuring Luisa that she is definitely carrying way too much.
“Under the surface,
I’m pretty sure I’m worthless if I can’t be of service.”
Luisa tells her their disgraced Tio Bruno had a vision about the magic, so Mirabel ventures into Bruno’s mysterious, sand-filled room to try to locate this vision. When she discovers glowing green shards in the sand, she pieces together enough parts to see an image of herself. Upon her realization that she may be the one who is hurting the magic, the room begins to collapse and fill with sand. Mirabel narrowly escapes after collecting all the pieces, but is immediately questioned by Abuela. They are interrupted by Luisa, who is sobbing about letting everyone down because she is losing her powers. Abuela is angry at Mirabel, but has to leave to prepare for Isabela’s proposal.
Before she sees the whole vision, Mirabel is suddenly told all of the information her family knows about Bruno. Some family members claim he’s mean, conniving, scary, or creepy— but whether these descriptions are from experience or only rumors is unclear. What we do know is that the picture being painted of Bruno is a negative one.
“It’s a heavy lift with a gift so humbling.
always left Abuela and the family fumbling,
grappling with prophecies they couldn’t understand.
Do you understand?”
Against everyone’s warnings, Mirabel pieces together the entire vision, which shows her in front of a broken house, but it also changes from broken to unbroken and back again. Mirabel’s worst fear has come true: the problem with the magic is connected to Mirabel.
The family finds out this information in the most dramatic way possible, ruining Isabela’s proposal and embarrassing the family in front of the town, which Abuela desperately and aggressively tries to cover up. The adult family members have a heated discussion about the vision. Pepa’s anxiety is manifesting in a storm as Agustin and Julieta finally stand up for Mirabel, but Abuela’s fear of losing her home again prevents her from seeing the part she is playing in the the cracks spreading throughout Casita.
In the chaos, Mirabel follows the rats she saw in Bruno’s room to a secret entrance behind a painting. Mirabel meets Bruno, who is a kind hermit living in the walls of Casita, and she learns the truth: that Bruno left 10 years ago and destroyed the vision to protect her from what the family would think of it.
“Sometimes family weirdos just get a bad rap.”
— Mirabel to Bruno
After some convincing, and Antonio (informed by the rats) offering his room to use for vision-casting, Bruno agrees to have another vision— which reveals a butterfly in an unfamiliar location and the candle glowing brighter when Mirabel hugs Isabela. Though frustrating, because Mirabel and Isabela do not get along, she is determined to save the miracle and agrees to embrace Isabela.
Instead of hugging, the girls begin to argue, Mirabel claiming her sister is selfish and can still marry the hunky Mariano and have a perfect life, but Isabela confesses she never wanted to marry him anyways. Upon revealing this, a cactus sprouts in front of her, and Isabela realizes her powers are more than growing cute, little flowers. As she experiments with colorful, dangerous, spiky plants, she thanks Mirabel for opening up her world to opportunities she didn’t think were possible before.
“What could I do if I just knew
it didn’t need to be perfect?
It just needed to be,
and they let me be”
And of course, big bad Abuela has to come in and ruin a perfectly good sister moment with her wild accusations that Mirabel is the reason for everything going wrong. Mirabel finally stands up for herself and reveals how much pressure Abuela is placing on the family and blames her for being a threat to the miracle.
“I will never be good enough for you, will I?
No matter how hard I try.
No matter how hard any of us tries.”
— Mirabel to Abuela
This argument results in the entire Casita crumbling to the ground and the entire encanto suffering from an earthquake. When the candle goes out, the family’s magic disappeared with it. All of the family, including Bruno, escape unharmed. Mirabel blames herself for the destruction of their home, so she leaves through the middle of a split mountain. She cries at the edge of a river, where Abuela finds her and shares the river’s significance in their family’s story. This was where they received their miracle, where Abuelo Pedro was killed. Previously, Abuela had told the story as a beautiful beginning to a magical story of hope, but this time, Abuela is honest and we see just how traumatic and devastating the experience was for her.
There was a big reason behind Alma’s drastic decisions within the family; she had an intense anxiety that she would lose her home again. She seemed to feel that she had to make Pedro’s sacrifice worth his life, which is an impossible standard to set for yourself. Mirabel and Abuela both apologize for their part in their family’s brokenness. Mirabel had never shared her views with Abuela until their argument and Abuela had never given her a safe space to express them. Abuela specifically apologizes for losing sight of who the miracle was for. They embrace, finally understanding and making room for the other’s point of view.
“Nothing could ever be broken that we can’t fix together.”
— Mirabel to Abuela
“Ay, mariposas,
don’t you hold on too tight
Both of you know
it’s your time to go
To fly apart, to reunite
Wonders surround you,
just let the walls come down
Don’t look behind you,
fly till you find
Your way toward tomorrow”1
When they return to the crumbled remains of their home, Mirabel motivates the family to rebuild Casita with a new foundation. Abuela and the family welcome Bruno back with open arms and the entire town comes to the family’s aid to rebuild their home almost exactly as it had been. Before they go inside, the family presents Mirabel with the front doorknob, finally acknowledging her bravery and her very existence being a gift to the family. When Mirabel connects the doorknob to the door, the Casita regains all of its magic and comes back to life. Their front door etches in a depiction of their entire family, with Mirabel at the center.
Casita welcomes the entire town in once again and the family realizes they have regained their gifts. Isabela ditches her pink dress and goes with a deep blue (which is her family unit’s color anyways) with splashes of bright colors. Luisa finally takes some time to relax. Pepa embraces her powers and dances around in her storm with Felix. And finally, the family takes an improved group picture, where almost no one is ready or posed or even in focus; however, this picture is a true image of their family— imperfect, but also unique, real, and full of love.
Mirabel: Cycle Breaker & Trauma Healer
This movie does a phenomenal job at talking indirectly about trauma and generational trauma. Calling Mirabel a cycle breaker means she is “someone who identifies and changes negative patterns, behaviors, or traditions within her family or relationships.” In this way, Mirabel’s gift is cycle-breaking and that is definitely a gift to this family on the verge of a meltdown at every event. It wasn’t okay that her family exiled Bruno, or that Pepa was not allowed to be herself and share her emotions. It wasn’t okay to work Luisa into constant panic attacks or to make Isabela feel like she needed to marry a man simply because he was perfect enough in her grandmother’s eyes. Mirabel was the first one to point this out to Abuela, resulting in her taking the brunt of Abuela’s pent-up emotional reaction. I know this feeling well.
The family gifting Mirabel her doorknob to use for the front door of their new Casita always makes me SOB. This is absolutely the perfect way for the family to acknowledge the trauma she experienced as a child during her gift ceremony and how they did not support her through that. It’s so important that her family communicated their appreciation for her willingness to risk upsetting the family. Because she made the choice to face the issues her family wanted to repress and fight the traditions that were negatively affecting family members, her family is closer and happier. Being perfect is not necessary, but it is extremely necessary to know that you matter.
“The miracle is not some magic that you’ve got.
The miracle is you, not some gift, just you.”
— Abuela Alma
I could go on and on about everything I love about this movie.
If you do a double-feature like we did and watch an older movie (Lilo & Stitch) and then watch this movie, you will notice the insane details in the animation of Mirabel’s hair or the texture of her embroidered clothing. The song sequences are also extremely detailed and imaginative, especially during Luisa’s song. It’s just such a beautiful movie.
The magical world that was built in this movie could do so many cool things in a sequel or a spin-off series. Are their gifts different after they rebuilt Casita? Where is the candle? Is Casita actually the spirit of Abuelo Pedro? I have so many questions about the lore! Also, these characters are insanely powerful. Any of them could be villains and wreak havoc throughout the encanto. Do these gifts continue throughout generations? Does Mirabel get to have Abuela Alma’s room after she passes instead of staying in the nursery forever?
I also heard there is an Encanto expansion coming to the Disney parks! I could not be more excited to stand in the middle of Casita, hopefully ride a cool coaster with minimal screens, and take a bite of the magical arepa con queso!! Even if it doesn’t cure me of IBS, it better taste amazing. :)
But I mostly love this movie because it feels so validating. Encanto’s story is my story (without everyone living in the same house together, thank goodness!) and I find myself playing the role of cycle-breaker again and again. I find myself in the same mental space as Mirabel was by the river, feeling like she messed up everything that everyone else around her considered to be perfect. But, I am an optimist. I have hope that we’ll make it through. Even in the bleakest moments, God has happily surprised me with more healing and changes for the better than I could imagine. I have that hope now, as I stand on the other side of a huge crack in the foundation. Casita represents their family values and, in making a new foundation, they change what is most important to the family: appearing to be perfect or making sure everyone knows they are loved and accepted just for being part of the family.
🌻ART SHOW & TELL🌻
Hit me up for your collage needs, digital and not. It’s honestly one of my favorite things to do.
Time for some TLCCC💕
Treating myself to: nothing. Did you see how many books I bought last week? I am loaded, I gotta calm down. lol but guess what a good friend of mine treated me to??
Listening to: The Encanto Soundtrack, of course! And the Hamilton Soundtrack 🙈 But also the worship playlist that includes a song from each family member for our family vacation next week!
Crafting: a photo slideshow for a bridal shower and a bunch of fun stuff on Canva
Craving: Costco’s tortilla chips and Chobani yogurt
Caring SO much about: my blog, Oakley starting to use the potty, the Passion’s translation of the bible, all of the new books I got, and keeping my Zachy as happy as he can be right now.
The English and Spanish versions of this song are gorgeous. Though both sung by the same artist, they have different lyrics to fit the rhyme scheme in both languages. The direct Spanish translation brings a different perspective to the song, which I couldn’t go without sharing here.
”Oh, butterflies,
Don’t hold each other any longer
We must grow apart and return
That’s the way forward
You are already miracles
Breaking chrysalises
You must fly
And find your own future”
I love that you love this movie as much as I love ❤️ this movie!
PS. We need to make arepas con queso!