Encanto

Story

Blessed by an enchanted candle while fleeing for their lives, Abuela Alma (Maria Cecilia Botero) and her three small children try to be of service to their community. As they grow, each child is granted a special gift – one can see the future, one can heal with food, and one can change the weather. As they each have their own families, their children too are blessed with special powers.

Everyone except Mirabel (Stehanie Beatriz) has a gift or power. Mirabel wishes with all her heart for a special gift that would make her family proud. As her youngest cousin is blessed with his gifts, Mirabel struggles with feelings of regret, sorrow and uselessness. She suddenly sees cracks forming throughout their family’s magical home, threatening to tear them all apart. As the candle’s flame wanes, it seems that Mirabel can see something the others can’t, although her sister Luisa (Jessica Darrow) can feel her power waning too.

In a desperate bid to help her family, Mirabel tracks down her elusive uncle Bruno (John Leguizamo), who disappeared years before. She discovers that the future her uncle foresaw is coming to pass, the house is being torn apart, and she is somehow at the centre of it all.

Determined not to let her family down, Mirabel works on repairing relationships and begins to understand that sometimes not having a gift can be the greatest gift of all.

Themes

Family breakdown; the pressure to be perfect and to hide how you truly feel; feelings of uselessness, worthlessness and invisibility; fear of the past repeating itself; running away to protect others

Violence

Encanto has some violence. For example:

Men on horseback are shown fire-bombing the houses of villagers.
It’s implied that Abuela Alma’s husband is killed by the men on horseback. One of these men is shown holding a sword. She watches in horror, clinging to her babies, and then she collapses to the ground in tears when her husband doesn’t return.
Mirabel is nearly crushed to death when her house collapses around her.

Sexual references

There are no sexual references in Encanto.

Alcohol, drugs and other substances

Encanto shows some use of substances. For example, Abuela Alba insinuates that Mirabel might have had too much to drink when Mirabel claims that the house is in trouble even though they can’t find any cracks.

Nudity and sexual activity

There’s no nudity and sexual activity in Encanto.

Product placement

There’s no product placement in Encanto.

Coarse language

Encanto has some name-calling, including ‘loser’ and ‘stupid perfect’.

Ideas to discuss with your children

Encanto is an animated musical from Disney set in Colombia. Filled with colour, culture and well-developed characters, this is a movie that all but the youngest family members can enjoy.

One thing to note is that Encanto does contain sequences of flashing lights, which might be a trigger for viewers with photosensitive epilepsy or other photosensitivities.

The main messages from Encanto are that everyone has gifts and that every person is a gift.

Values in Encanto that you could reinforce with your children include teamwork, love, community service, empathy, honesty and selflessness.

Encanto could also give you the chance to talk with your children about the real-life consequences of things like:

running away to protect the people you love
letting fear that the past will repeat itself to cloud your vision of the present or future.
forcing yourself to feel or behave a certain way because of other people’s expectations
overlooking some family members because they don’t seem to have the abilities of others.