Tangled

Zachary Levi, the one who played Flynn Rider – the “prince charming”, said in an interview, “everything you love about Disney, you will find it in Tangled”. After watching the new highly praised animated film from Disney, I see why Levi described the movie in such a simple sentence, but this princess movie is a lot more than just beautiful blond princess being saved from a tower far away from her kingdom.

The story is a spin-off of a well-known Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale, “Rapunzel”. An evil enchantress takes baby Rapunzel away from her royal family, and raises her at a faraway tower, secluded from the world. However, Tangled only took the basic frame from the Grimm’s Brothers’ fairy tale. Rapunzel in Tangled is more adventurous and free-spirited than the original one. In addition, instead of being saved by a prince-charming, the modern Rapunzel is not saved, but rather finds herself out of the castle after negotiating with a thief with a kind heart. As the thief, Flynn Rider, guides Rapunzel to venture out into the real world, they find true love for each other. As with many Disney princess movies, the ending is predictably similar to the original with the “happily ever after”.

The new modern spin to the original “Rapunzel” is a great adjustment to all the criticism that Disney has been getting about their subliminal messages. Some people might argue that Disney princess movies are merely cartoons to entertain children and suit their imagination about castles and prince charming. However, many studies have shown that these animated movies may influence some basic ideals of the society to children. The most criticized theme of Disney has been “a helpless beautiful woman, just waiting to be saved by a strong gorgeous prince charming”. Thus, Rapunzel in the modern version was everything what a current society wants a woman to be: adventurous, strong, smart, and courageous. For example, in several dangerous situations, Rapunzel is the one to save Flynn Rider. Plus, it wasn’t Rapunzel’s pretty charms that had Flynn Rider fall in love with her, but rather it was her outgoing personality. This idea will help the little viewers to understand the meaning of true love.  Actually, there was a very positive main theme to the movie: go live your dream. The idea is based from Rapunzel’s wish to go out to the real world away from her tower, but the idea is further built with extra characters’ dreams that are not quite fitting to their thug characters. Thus, the story collaborates to show that anyone can achieve their dream when pursued with persistence. 

In addition to a great message, another reason why this movie can be loved by the adult viewers is because of the amazing music. Disney is known to have great soundtrack, from Beauty and the Beast to Mulan, and Disney has done it again with the modern Rapunzel! Music was written by Alan Menken, an eight-time Oscar composer/song writer who wrote music for The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, etc. The theme song, “I See the Light” has been nominated as Best Original Song for Golden Globes as well as the Academy Awards. Of course, adding to the wonderfully composed music was the melodious singing of the cast, Mandy Moore as Rapunzel, Zachary Levi as Flynn Rider, and Donna Murphy. Many Moore has a sweet girl-next-door voice that fitted to her role as a lovely 18 years old, Zachary Levi was a pleasant surprise with his witty prince charming voice with a right tone for the soothing song, and Donna Murphy blew the listener away with her experiences from the Broadway.

Overall, Disney movies are quickly evolving to fit the social changes of the current society while keeping some room for young viewers’ imaginations about true love. Tangled is a high quality animated film with strong story, beautiful images, high end casts, topped with sweet melodies from the most re-known soundtrack composer of this century. 

Love and Other Drugs

After watching Love and Other Drugs, I thought, maybe Love is the best drug for our lives. The movie starts in Jamie Randall’s house – played by Jake Gyllenhaal – showing how unsuccessful his life is compared to his father who is a professor at a medical school, his sister who is a doctor, and his brother who has just sold his medical computer program for 35 million dollars. Then he heads off to become a pharmaceutical rep at Ohio River Valley, where he tries to persuade doctors to prescribe Zoloft, a new competitor of Prozac – drug that supposedly makes people happy and suppress anger. There, he meets Maggie Murdock – played by Anne Hathaway – who is a 27 year old with Parkinson’s disease. What started off as “friends with benefits”, Jamie begins to truly fall in love with Maggie while she is afraid of any serious relationships because of her incurable disease. Without giving too much away, rest of the movie builds up conflicts between the two lovers, questioning the audience “how much can you give up for love?”

            The director Edward Zwick who is known for directing Blood Diamond and The Last Samurai excelled in adding humor to a deep love story. The movie uses comic relief very affectively to lighten the mood, making the movie multi-dimensional and more dynamic. The way Zwick put the setting of the movie to the late 80s set the tone for romantic movies of that time, like When Harry Met Sally, which contains realistic subtle love that makes audiences smile. In combination of these factors, Love and Other Drugs will make audiences flip-flop between different emotions.

            However, like with all the movies, Love and Other Drugs can be credited to be a well-made romantic comedy, because of the excellent cast. For both Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway, their roles in the movie were somewhat unconventional to the characters they usually pick.  Gyllenhaal has been seen as a great actor in more of serious films like Donnie Darko or The Brokeback Mountain. To see him as a witty everyday character added another dimension to his acting career. For Anne Hathaway, who took greater variety of roles even before the movie, playing seductive yet very vulnerable character of Maggie Murdock showed the audience that she can move on to the next level, to become an actress who is never afraid to try anything adventurous.

           

Although the movie might seem like a light romantic comedy full of two characters making love at the most random moments, the movie definitely contains a lot more meaning about love than what is initially perceived. All the provocative sex scenes were there to add to Jamie’s confession, “You meet thousands of people and none of them really touch you and then you meet one person and your life is changed forever.” Seeing Jamie – the pharmaceutical representative – find his cure of his life through his true love for Maggie shows that love is as powerful but also addictive as any drug, which even comes with some unexpected side effects.