In the aftermath of John Lasseter’s not-so-gentle departure from Pixar, the newly created Skydance Animation studio tried to take some of that Pixar magic many of their creatives have fine-tuned over the years with their debut film Luck for Apple TV Plus with some mixed results. For their sophomore effort, they switched streamers and debuted their latest film Spellbound on Netflix, and it has some of that good old Pixar spirit of combining complicated issues that even adults wrestle with for kids with some breathtaking animation.
Princess Ellian (Rachel Zegler) is the teenage princess of the Lumbria Kingdom. In this beautiful and fantastical world of Spellbound, she can fly on their royal steeds (some strange flying lion creature) with her friends, however, she has substantial royal duties that most princesses aren’t burdened with: she has to take care of (and keep secret) that her parents Queen Ellsmere (Nicole Kidman) and King Solon (Javier Bardem) have transformed into monsters. Working with the King and Queen’s advisors Minister Bolinar (John Lithgow) and Minister Nazara (Jenifer Lewis), they are the de facto rulers of the kingdom. But after keeping everything under wraps for a year (and stressing Princess Ellian who just wants to play with her friends), the secret of two monsters hidden in the kingdom is starting a whisper campaign that needs to be addressed sooner or later.
The ministers want to make Princess Ellian the new queen and send her monster parent to the countryside away from the kingdom. And while Ellian slowly warms up to the idea, she would rather have her parents back. As monsters, they can’t speak and barely have any resemblance to their former selves, but Ellian loves her parents and desperately wants to get them back to their old selves. She reached out to Ludo (Tituss Burgess) and Sunny (Nathan Lane) two members of The Oracle of the Moon to try and work out a magical solution. Comedically realizing that her parents are actually monsters and not a metaphor, the two tell Princess Ellian that she can go on a quest to a magical land and search for “the light” to help save her parents.
Ellian leaves the kingdom with her two monster parents and Minister Bolinar (who had swapped bodies with her pet) and they begin their quest to go to the magical land to try and discover a way to restore her parents to who they once were. As Spellbound continues, the monsters begin to show their old selves. They regain the ability to speak, they remember their daughter, and then they remember each other… which turns out to not be a great idea.
This leads to Spellbound’s thesis: this is not a simple story about magic, monsters, and kingdoms, this film is an analysis on divorce through the eyes of a child who doesn’t understand such complex issues. Her parents had transformed into monsters by how they treated each other and truly existed in a selfish world of darkness, and they needed to see the light within themselves and each other. Towards the end of Spellbound, there is a resolution that is honest and realistic for a society where half of all marriages end in divorce, and the film does it in a way that is very mature yet easily digestible for young kids, especially if they are the children of divorced parents. Even if you are in the midst of a divorce and have concerns about how your children are impacted by the process, Spellbound is a good film that can allow them to understand such a complex issue in an easy way that can prove therapeutic.
Spellbound’s strength lies in its story and the metaphor as described. However, it’s not without faults. The musical numbers aren’t necessarily bangers, or even ones you’ll remember once done streaming the movie. There are a few scenes within the film where Princess Ellian talks directly to the camera (almost like she’s in a reality TV show) that director Vicky Jenson doesn’t fully commit to for but two scenes and feels rather out of place. Many of the comedic moments also don’t inspire more than a brief chuckle. Both Tituss Burgess and Nathan Lane do the heavy lifting as the Oracle of the Moon couple and act in the most Tituss Burgess and Nathan Lane possible, but one of the big surprises is John Lithgow for both comedic moments and surprisingly singing. He and Jenifer Lewis are great at their songs together. But of course, the real MVP is Rachel Zegler whose voicework (along with singing a great deal of the songs) and her playing a princess in Spellbound is just basically prepping us for her role as the titular character in Snow White next year.
Spellbound is an intriguing and fantastic film as it continues the Pixar tradition of weaving complex adult issues into a film aimed for children (while not being a Pixar film) and most certainly gives Skydance Animation their first critical darling. While the songs aren’t your usual cup of tea, the animation and voicework work very well and most certainly require you to sit and watch it over the holiday season with your little ones.
Spellbound is now playing on Netflix.
