WISH: A Review

I love kids films.

I didn’t used to. As a kid longing to be older than I was, they felt too childish for my PG- rated palette. Now that I’m not a kid any more, turns out injecting a little dose of child-like wonder every now and then is good for my soul.

So, I was excited to take my kids to see Disney’s latest offering – Wish.

Here’s some thoughts, structured around the three questions that lead me to read any kind of movie review.

What is it?

Given it’s the 100th anniversary of Disney, the film worked hard to incorporate as much Disney history as it could get away with – and it was done well. The whole thing was visually stunning, as the creators deployed a beautiful blend of modern animation techniques with that classic watercolour feel that made Disney famous. The colours were striking from the get go, and only got better throughout the film.

There were also easter eggs aplenty from the Disney canon, taking an adult viewer straight back to their own childhood regardless of which decade that happened to be. I love a good callback, and found myself smiling at all the subtle tips of the cap that populated the first half of the film.

As a tribute to the past, it was cute, and nicely done.
As a piece of literature in the present – it left me feeling ultimately dissatisfied.

Never mind that the songs weren’t especially memorable, the jokes weren’t that funny, and there were only a couple of characters I cared about. It was the narrative that let the film down most.

From the start, it was clear that the film was designed as a thinly veiled swipe at monotheistic faith.

With musical refrains like ‘We are made from stars’ & ‘We are our own origin story’, together with the unjustified assumption that our dreams are the most important part of us, there were a whole lot of moments to make your friendly neighbourhood atheist smile and nod.

Chief among them was the portrayal of the King. ‘Magnifico’ was an apparently benevolent, omnipotent higher power, who demanded the trust and praise of all the people, but certainly didn’t deserve it. Unsurprisingly, dethroning the oppressive monarch became the main goal of the protagonists, along with the requisite ballads of longing & token comic-relief animal.

What Should I Make of it? (Spoiler Alerts)

As a critique of monotheism, it felt a little clumsy, as it’s pretty difficult to recognise the God I trust in the caricature designed to critique him.
As a promotion of humanist hope, it’s not just a swing and a miss – it’s an own goal.

At first, I thought this was because the film was narratively confused. My kids couldn’t really follow all the plot lines, and I’m not sure they could have caught the intended morals of the story if they were trying to. So if the goal was to build suspicion towards faith, it was a little ineffective. But the thing that interested me was – I’m pretty sure that it was necessarily narratively confused. It turns out that when you wish upon a star – things get weirdly complicated and paradoxical.¹

Here’s a few:

-We’re supposed to look inside ourselves for our own destiny...
…And yet, somehow the answer to overthrowing the oppressor is not found in an individual. It’s based in a communal, shared unity. Ironically, the unity is centred around our individuality – but it’s unity all the same.

-We don’t need a King…
…And yet, a queen takes his place without question. Rather than do away with the monarchy, it’s unquestioningly adopted again, because people presumably didn’t feel safe.

-There is no higher being worthy of our complete trust.
…And yet we seem to require some sort of transcendent power outside ourselves (in this case, the stars) to become all that we can be.

Essentially, the film tied itself in knots trying to build a kingdom without a king, which resulted in a series of confused & contradictory messages.² While the problems of the king were obvious – the solutions were not. Some might say that’s because the screenplay just wasn’t very good. But I wonder if it’s simply because the storytellers couldn’t shake the deeply human desire be part of a kingdom. The longings for a unity and a transcendence we can trust remained, long after Magnifico was overthrown.

Should I See it?

So, if you’re a discerning parent wondering whether to take the youngsters in your charge out to the nearest cinema, it depends what your question is:

If it’s a question of quality – I’d save my money and wait til it’s streamable. A week on, and my 3&5 year olds can’t name a single character or hum a single tune from the film, so I can’t see it going down as a classic. (And if you’re a church leader reading this, I doubt you’ll need to see it to keep pace with the people you serve. Go re-watch Barbie instead.)

If it’s a question of morality, and you’re wondering whether to let your kids see it all – I would, but I’d watch it with them. Not because I see it as a threatening secular attempt at indoctrination. Quite the opposite. I’d recommend watching it together because it’s a beautiful opportunity for children and adults alike to be reminded that when you reach into the treasure chest of humanism for hope, the cupboard is bare. What’s more, it provides great chance to imagine how much more satisfying our stories could be if some day, somewhere, there was a better king on the throne.

1. I’d be happy to concede that the decision to make ‘wishing upon a star’ the central hope of the film was just a forced attempt to pay tribute to Disney’s past; a solution in search of a problem. On the other hand, it could also be understood as a revealing expose of all that’s left when you reaching into the tool-chest of humanism to find the tools you need to construct a kingdom without a king. ↩︎
2. I’m not sure who came up with the language of ‘a kingdom without a king’ first, but it’s certainly wasn’t me. I first heard it from Mark Sayers in the ‘This Cultural Moment’ podcast. ↩︎