Friday Night Movie Night: Moana
Why do we love Moana? Let me count the ways. Well first, perhaps I should explain who we are ( you’re welcome for that one…and for that one, too). Okay, if you’ve seen it already and know the music, you may get the inside jokes here, if not, allow me to proceed.
We are a family with three way little kids who like to watch a movie together on Friday nights. We make big thing of it and call it Friday Night Movie Night with a little jingle. Popcorn is always present. We struggle to find good movies for this age-diverse crowd so the review below will hopefully help you and your family find another one for your rotation.
1. The Music. The music is fantastic. Lin-Manuel Miranda, Opetaia Foa’i and Mark Mancina lead the way here, receiving an Academy Award nomination in 2017 for the song, ‘How Far I’ll Go.’ The melodies are catchy as is the case with most Disney musicals, but the lyrics are what push this film to the top of the heap. The more I listen to the songs, the more lyrics I pick up, the more thought-provoking and nuanced and meaningful they become to me.
We listen to the album with frequency. Not only am I, the mother/chauffeur/DJ not annoyed by listening to the soundtrack over and over and over again, I enjoy it and often suggest this music, myself. Sure, I was one of those kids belting out, ‘I just can’t wait to be king!’ to my mom back in ’94 but my dream of being a ‘Disney kid singer’ went dormant with puberty and has only been reawakened by the call of Moana, ‘…and the call isn’t out there at all it’s inside me.’ Again, you’re welcome.
2. The Cast. This brings me to The Rock. No, not Nick Cage and Sean Connery, we’re still talking about Moana. I mean Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson who provides the voice of Maui, a narcisistic demi-god (is there any other kind?) whom Moana needs to team up with to save her chain of islands. I’ve always had a soft spot for the guy. My cousin, Trevor introduced me and my sister and brother to the world of WWF decades ago. The meeting was brief but I never did forget that big dude with the blazing white teeth asking if we could smell what The Rock was cooking. I never knew how to answer that question or how cooking and wrestling were related but, like any good catchphrase, it stuck. I’ve been happy to see the guy become a star and I say star because he is an all-around famous entertainer. The Rock is a wrestler, an actor and, yes, a singer. He does a fantastic job with the song, You’re Welcome.
Auliʻi Cravalho plays Moana and she is the personification of a dream come true in that my youthful dream of becoming a Disney kid singer happened to her. She is talented; she is as beautiful as the animated character she portrays and she is a native Hawaiin, which is pretty cool considering she is playing a Polynesian princess. She is also an unknown. She was a freshman in high school when she got the part. This girl can sing and I hope she has a career ahead of her because she offers something special to the world.
Lastly, Jemaine Clement, a comedian/musician who has held a place in my heart since HBO’s Flight of the Conchords has a small role as a villain and performs a song in his own beckoningly imitable David Bowie impersonation. So shiny.
3. The Heroin. Moana is younger than the average Disney babe, making her less of a babe. The sexualization of the leading lady that Elsa, herself, cringes at in self-deprecation in Frozen 2 is noticeably absent in this Disney tale. There is no cleavage or plunging neckline with a tiny waste and big ball skirt. There is no falling in love with a prince. There is no falling in love at all, actually, because Moana is a young teenager with other things on her mind. Yes, she is a princess, as Maui points out in their first meeting, but she reminds us more of a sporty pre-teen than a traditional Disney princess. It is very refreshing to see a four year old emulate a character she loves from the screen by pretending to sail rather than pretending to get married.
4. The Villain. Our kids are young. The oldest is four-and-a-half. We do Friday Night Movie Night every weekend so finding good movies that engage adults as well as tots and doesn’t encourage naughty behavior is difficult. Moana, our heroin is not sassy and no one in the film has an exclusively adult sense of humor, something that inhibits us from getting into many Pixar movies.
As mentioned above, there are a couple of villains. I’m not sure why Disney feels the need to give us scary images in just about every children’s movie. I don’t think the kids would miss the point if Maleficent didn’t have those creepy horns or Moana’s Lava Lady, Te Ka wasn’t a screaming liquid hot ghoul. This character might be the biggest turn off for young families. We brave through it but my five year old nephew just has a no go policy on Moana for this reason. Truthfully, the first time we tried to watch this movie, our oldest was almost four and the opening scene scared her enough for us to turn it off. We push the younger two through it now. C’est la vie. Pre-screening might be a good idea but the scary only shows up at the very beginning and the end if you are the fastforwarding type.
Not to go on about how great Moana is or anything but…this is what this article is about so… Te Ka actually turns out (spoiler alert) to be the beautiful goddess, Te Feti. Moana returns the monster’s stolen heart and sees the beauty inside her before this scary creature is beautiful on the outside. This act of grace from the young heroin results in the villain turning back into the lovely island she was meant to be. There is no Gaston falling into an abyss or Ursula getting stabbed in the gut, resulting in the inevitable, ‘Mommy, did they die?’ This is a gentle and peaceful resolution to the conflict that drives the plot. Bravo, again, Disney.
5. Represent. Finally, we love that Moana brings a culture, one based on a real place, to life. We tell our kids that Moana is from Hawaii because her Polynesian island of Motonui is fictitious, as far as we know. In the song, Where You Are, Moana’s father, the island Chief takes us through the traditions of their people. We see coconuts being used for fishing nets and for cooking. We see tribal tattoos being done with a presumably ancient method. Moana teaches hula dancing to the village youth. We can talk to our kids about the culture they are seeing in terms of reality, something that most Disney movies, most kid movies, really, just don’t facilitate.
Before I even saw Moana, back before Friday Night Movie Nights began for our family, I heard a piece on NPR about Moana being the first animated Disney movie to ever be dubbed in Moari, the native language of the indigenous people of New Zealand (Polynesia). The effort to represent a particular culture with respect is appreciated. Providing a version of the film expressly for the people it represents is something to be proud of and a factoid that we happily fumble through explaining to our young kids.
Overall rating for the Friday Night Movie Night flic?
A
( I’m withholding the plus due to the scary images left behind from the Lava Lady…but refer to #4 above to see if this effects your decision to watch as a family).
Let us know what you think below!