"So... now we gonna talk about Bruno?" Encanto review

Encanto is animated musical comedy that Disney released last year. Even way out in Angola I felt the influence of the film - it was the only movie that visitors from North America would bring up in conversation and contained the only new songs that people wanted to sing and share.

I really admire fiction that tells an engrossing story without utilizing an antagonist. I think a bit part of why I haven't been able to cut it as a writer of fiction is that I don't like creating antagonists. I wish I could tell a story the way Preston Sturges did, a conflict that doesn't actually require an antagonist - but it's not in my skillset.

Therefore, I truly admire fiction such as Encanto for telling a complete story without an antagonist figure. Certainly the character Bruno is set up in the film as a potential villain but he proves to be entirely benevolent. The drama comes from the family's personal conflicts rather than a particular malevolent force.

Similarly, Encanto's plot didn't pivot where I expected - considering the premise concerned the protagonist Mirabel's angst about not having a magical gift, I imagined that through the course of the film she would discover she really did have a gift. I was right, but not in a magical sense - she remains non-magical and that's a nice deviation from the expected.

The songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda are very catchy and fun to repeat. The whole film runs merely 90 minutes - it doesn't waste time, it's very lean and to the point. It's certainly one of the best family films I've seen since the start of the pandemic.