The story is a conflation of the fairy tale “The Princess and the Frog,” which
is referenced in the movie itself, and E.D. Baker’s The Frog Princess. Tiana is
a 1920s working girl in New Orleans whom the be-frogged foreign prince mistakes
for a princess when he sees her at a masquerade ball. She kisses him when he
promises to give her the money to make her dream of owning a restaurant come
true, but because she is not a princess, she gets turned into a frog as well.
The two of them are swept out into the bayou when they escape the estate dog on
helium balloons, and set out to find the voodoo queen at the heart of the swamp
to see if she can reverse the spell on them. The minions of the Shadow Man who
cast the spell on the prince aren’t far behind them, and they aren’t even aware
of their danger….
In the first place, I love the return to the hand-drawn animation that has in
the last decade been mostly supplanted by the sparkly new toolbox of digital
renderings. I have yet to see the CG movie that equals the sheer visual joy of
watching actual painted animations, and, yes, that includes the Toy Storys and
Shreks of the world. The Princess and the Frog is a triumphant return to the old
style. This movie is worth watching for its visuals alone, if you like animated
films. Some of the most beautiful sections were out in the bayou, specifically
the firefly parade through the cypress swamp, and the dancing on lily pads and
under the blackwater (which was surprisingly clear, but it was an artistic
license I easily forgave). Another favorite section was Tiana’s fantasy near the
beginning of how her restaurant will look. The animation was very stylized—it
was 1920s poster style; a style, in fact, that I have seen on the wall of at
least one French Quarter brunch spot.
Beyond simply how good the movie looked, it captured the feel of the city and
the cypress swamps. From the architecture of the mansions on the rich streets,
to the green streetcars and French Quarter, to the shotgun houses and ubiquitous
porches on the poor streets, it looked like New Orleans. It also felt like New
Orleans, with the jazz music in the city (vs. the zydeco music out in the
swamp), the importance of and emphasis on food, the Mardi Gras scenes….A couple
hilarious moments for me, that seemed totally in character for this place and
thus actual laugh-out-loud funny where to someone from Kansas maybe they were
just a chuckle: the jazz-trumpet-playing alligator who told the two frogs a
story of jumping on a steam-paddle-boat only to have half the men partying on it
pull out guns and shoot at him. Er, yes, all the old gents here would have
carried guns even in their finery. And at the masquerade ball where Tiana also
becomes enspelled, the two frogs are trying to escape and end up jumping onto
the band’s drum-set and thumping out a much faster beat than what the band had
been playing. The rest of the band heard the new beat and busted into an upbeat
jazz tune, and all the guests immediately laid off waltzing and started
jitterbugging. Which is completely in keeping with the good-timing spirit
here—everyone here is always down for some funky brass tunes. Who needs that
high-brow stuff? We’re here for the party.
I really liked that Tiana was a working girl. I wasn’t sure how they were going
to handle the princess aspect; I was expecting her to be a Mardi Gras princess
(which she wasn’t, though one of her friends was). Instead they didn’t make a
fantasy of the city but chose to be somewhat historical. I mean, it’s not like
this film was a treatise on race relations or something, but Tiana was working
two jobs to build a realistic dream for an African American woman at the
time—opening an elegant restaurant with amazing food, because good food really
will bring people from all walks of life together. There is an element of
discrimination on the part of the real estate agents selling the old sugar mill,
as well, favoring a buyer who had cash in hand and telling her that “from her
background” she was better off as she was. It was as controversial as Disney is
willing to get and without question glossed over, but I was glad they
acknowledged the historical reality at all.
I loved the bad guy being a voodoo practitioner. The Shadow Man. His minions,
his “friends from the other side” were creepy and more effective than many of
the villain’s henchmen are in fairy tales. It was also regional-appropriate and,
equally importantly, required only the slightest suspension of disbelief (given
the continuing fascination with/superstitions about voodoo/hoodoo) to seem
plausible. Part of me would have preferred a Tim Burton level of darkness, but
for a movie that still caters to small children this was the realistic level of
darkness. I don’t have kids so I can’t judge whether it would be scary to them,
but certainly none of the kids in our theater (and there were plenty) shrieked
even once.
The musical numbers were by turns lively and touching. There was a lot of New
Orleans brass and jazz music, and a couple zydeco songs when they were out in
the swamps with the Cajun animals. I LOVED the Mississippi River gator (voiced
by Emeril!) who just wanted to play the trumpet with a band, and the Cajun
firefly Ray. I actually thought Ray’s sub-plot was the stronger love story—he
was in love with the Evening Star, which he called Evangeline and loved for her
sparkle and her silence. In the end he gives his life to help save Tiana and the
prince, and when his life winks out a new star appears in the sky next to the
evening star. That was the lump-in-the-throat moment of beautiful love in this
movie.
Because, to be quite honest, there wasn’t that much of a love story between
Tiana and the prince. That’s probably my biggest criticism of the film’s story:
there’s just no real transition between them not thinking much of each other and
them loving each other. I mean, yes, she was the most real girl the prince had
ever been exposed to, but that didn’t really show why she would fall for him,
nor did he seem to be falling for her. In the space of about 5 minutes, he just
suddenly was. Then again, it was the five minutes of eating her magic gumbo, so
maybe it was just playing to the (already mentioned, by the way) old adage that
the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. But, as with any Disney fairy
tale, they do fall in love. I thought the ending of the spell was very clever;
it made complete sense when they explained the mechanism, but it wasn’t what I
was expecting (the typical Disney cliché of true love’s kiss conquering all).
In all, I thought this movie was a great addition to the Disney arsenal and a
wonderfully American interpretation of a fairy tale. It’s high time we had an
American princess, and Tiana made a great one. By turns amusing, exasperating,
heart-warming, bittersweet, and ultimately triumphant, The Princess and the Frog
shows that Disney can still make a movie as iconic and breathtaking as those
from its early-to-mid-90s peak.
