Brave (2012)

Brave

Written by Mark Andrews, Steve Purcell, Brenda Chapman, & Irene Mecchi

Directed by Mark Andrews & Brenda Chapman

Accompanying Short: La Luna

Written & Directed by Enrico Casarosa

I recall that Brave had been released for a while before I finally saw it, and people were telling me that it was “Brother Bear for girls” (a horribly sexist description, I might add). I would usually confusedly laugh and move along. So, imagine my surprise when I did finally see the film a few years later, and it was, essentially, Brother Bear, but with women. Like…any closer to Brother Bear and it would BE Brother Bear. Now, I like Brother Bear, but many other people don’t (which is strange but not unexpected in my case), so of course the inverse is true here.

Bambino, the star of La Luna

Paired with Brave is the short La Luna. My first exposure to La Luna was when I met my husband: his computer desktop was a still from the short. It would take a few years before I saw it, and I immediately loved it too. It’s a great little story about a boy finding his own path in life, despite his father and grandfather each expressing their own views of how he should do things. This story is set against a fantastical setting, as the three men anchor themselves to the moon and sweep falling stars from its surface, creating the phases we see down on Earth. It’s pretty sweet, and gorgeous to look at.

Just…just look at this character design. Ugh.

To start with the most positive about Brave would be that it is also (mostly) beautiful to look at. The settings of the Scottish highlands are exquisitely rendered here, and showcases Pixar’s move ever closer to photorealism. There is some great visual imagery, but the sequence of Merida climbing to the falls takes the cake. There’s not a single bad set design in the film, but I admittedly tried to focus more on the story than the surroundings. I will say that, for some reason, as great as the settings look, the majority of the other characters look awful. I don’t mean from a bad animation perspective, I mean from a bad design perspective. The majority of these characters look like grotesque caricatures of Scottish people, so much so that it was a bit distracting.

Moms just don’t understand…

I mentioned that the film is, at its core, the same as Brother Bear, but in reality, I’d describe the film more as being the product of if Brother Bear and Braveheart had a baby. The film, Pixar’s first fairy tale, is VERY Scottish (including a minor character whose accent is so thick he’s unintelligible, even to the other characters). Added to the Braveheart-esque esthetic is a direct lift of Brother Bear’s key plot point, with a small twist: Merida and her mother can’t seem to understand one another, so because of plot reasons, her mother is turned into a bear. Now, in Brother Bear, its lead character, Kenai, is turned into a bear because he kills one out of revenge. It’s a very “see how the other half lives” sort of a deal. Here, Elinor is turned into a bear because…the woodworker witch likes bears? Merida’s father hates bears? There’s no real reason that she has to be a bear, other than if she were any other animal the entire third act wouldn’t exist.

Merida being a role model. Fight the system!!

I think it’s unfair to dismiss this film as “Brother Bear for girls”. There is a lot more happening than just lifting Brother Bear’s plot. First, Merida is an “unconventional” heroine. I say unconventional in quotes because I think as a society and an audience we’re moving away from conventions: there doesn’t have to be paint-by-numbers heroine anymore. Brave is the first film from Pixar to have a woman as the central character (but thankfully not the last), and she is a great role model (once you move past the whole “trick your mother with a spell because she just doesn’t GET you” thing). She wants to choose her own fate, something that the world’s girls need to hear, I think (and I fully admit that, as a male, I am totally the last person who needs to be saying ANYTHING about what a woman needs. Ladies, tell me what you want, I’ll support it). This film is also the first film directed by a woman at Pixar (although she got pulled off the film and replaced by a man midway through, so that’s…discouraging). I think the empowerment message is really great, although I’d be curious to hear what women think about it.

Unfortunately, for me, I can’t get over the blandness of the plot. For all it innovates with its animation and leading character, the film just feels derivative. There isn’t really anything that’s truly groundbreaking from a storytelling perspective. A film with this much female-driven factors should have something pioneering about the story it’s telling, and unfortunately this film just doesn’t. It’s boundary-pushing, to be sure, but it feels very little, and extremely too late. Merida deserves better than the story she’s given here.

SHORT GRADE: A+

FILM GRADE: B-