Livre d'Or

As a unicorn chaser for a post about depressing stuff.

Having seen a couple of films that were more scary and violent than we were hoping for, jack and I picked one we were pretty sure wouldn't confront us with that sort of thing: last year's Pixar offering, Coco.

I definitely really enjoyed it; it's really visually pretty, and tells an original story with some lovely characterization. I liked the animation of the animals both flesh and spirit, and the world of the dead with the amazingly expressive skeletons is lovely. There are bits of silly physical comedy mostly involving the skeletons having detachable bones, but never to the extent that it's intrusive. And Frida Kahlo as comic relief character is pretty awesome.

I do like that it subverts the Hollywood narrative of the hero pursuing his dreams by leaving his small-town, non-talented family in order to fulfil his miraculous talent. I was impressed by the film addressing bereavement and other sadder parts of human experience, dementia, generational trauma and so on, in a way that's child-appropriate and hopeful, but without denying that sad things are sad.

Also my OSOs' children were excited to see the new Fantastic Beasts film, and I said I wasn't that keen on it and hadn't seen FB1 anyway. So ghoti_mhic_uait arranged for me to watch the DVD with them. I liked Fantastic beasts and where to find them much more than I was expecting to. Partly cos I watched it cuddled up on the sofa with the children who are massive HP fans, but partly because is really very sweet.

I liked Redmayne's Newt Scamander and Fogler's Jacob Kowalski really a lot. Just lovely characterization. Also the Goldstein sisters Tina and Queenie are great fun. I was impressed that they managed to make Newt's menagerie really cute, without relying at all on the obvious tropes of making everything look like baby mammals with huge eyes. That's a really nice use of the franchise's unlimited special effects budget. I found it hard to care about the drama around the anti-magic cult and the search for the child with special powers, but honestly that felt mostly tacked on, it was all about Newt and Jacob being brave in their different ways and getting the creatures back to safety.

It feels oddly different in tone from the HP films. Like, it's obviously in the same world since the spells are the same, there are a couple of mentions of Hogwarts and one of Dumbledore. I think it's partly being set away from the school with adult characters, who are all competent magic users and cast their spells effortlessly, rather than a coming of age thing. It drops the Hogwarts thing of children escaping the mundane modern world for a vaguely pop-cultural Mediaeval setting. There's a relentlessly heteronormative romance arc, where the lovably dorky guy gets the implausibly pretty girl, in a way that seems entirely pitched at adults rather than younger teenagers.

I don't think I would have bothered with the film if it weren't for the children being so much into Harry Potter. But I'm not at all sorry I did see it.