Tangled

Rating: 5/5 

Chances are, you’ve watched Tangled. And chances are, you loved it. But chances also are, it was just a cute romance Disney film to you.

Well, I’m here to tell you the reasons why Tangled is (and probably will always be) my favourite Disney movie.

Firstly, the amount of work put into the character designs and the development of each character’s personality is simply insane. Naturally, my automatic response to the question of my favourite character would be Flynn Rider. Not only does his charm, unique backstory and chemistry with Rapunzel set him apart from most other Disney males, the crazy fine-tuning of his character design (with the movie’s directors requiring infamous “hot man meetings” to nail his look) makes him incredibly special to Disney. In fact, they actually used some of Flynn’s initial sketches to create Kristoff from Frozen.

But he isn’t who I want to talk about. I will be discussing Mother Gothel. To a younger and older audience, to people with different backgrounds, the movie takes on different meanings. On the surface, Tangled appears to be an immensely well-animated Disney film featuring endearing characters, characters that eventually find their happily-ever-after (as they all do). 

But to a more mature audience, their experience with Tangled might be wildly divergent. Watching Mother Gothel gaslight Rapunzel and recognising the metaphors Disney so cleverly utilises to emphasise her psychosis (for example, whenever she shows any sort of physical affection or says “I love you” to Rapunzel, it’s actually to her hair) makes many viewers put Mother Gothel high up on the list of Disney’s nastiest villains. Some even find the movie highly disturbing as Mother Gothel’s messed up manipulative treatment parallels certain traits people recognise and fear in others. No powers, no strength, just pure manipulation. The realism of her character is what makes her so uneasy to watch. In my opinion, she is one of the most well-written villains of all time.

Every single Disney character undergoes an intense character design process that normal people like us probably don’t observe and appreciate. From having to study the texture of the fabric they wear, to the physics of their hair, each character design process takes up months of skilled work put in by character designers with decades of experience. Mother Gothel’s costume had to be based on garments 400 years before Rapunzel’s time period, a time so far back that the massive attention to detail often goes unrecognised by us casual viewers. 

I wish for this review to allow all of us to be able to take a step back and appreciate the magnificent animation behind Tangled. Many don’t comprehend the years and effort that go into a single Disney film. Tangled, Disney’s first 3D CG animated fairytale movie made history in the animation world.

If you’d like, rewatch the movie. Appreciate each calculated camera angle, each perfect composition that resulted from months of drafting and storyboarding and each graceful movement of Rapunzel’s hair which Kelly Ward spent 6 years perfecting (Yes, she took 6 years to write the programme just for her hair). Each and every scene has been gone over by hundreds of people. Next time you watch any CG animated film, notice the lighting, the minor details on each character's clothing, and the carefully curated props and backgrounds. 

Hopefully, after reading this, you’ll go back and watch the movie (or any other animated film, really) with a fresh lens and appreciate the years of dedication behind each and every one of them.