*Comprises spoilers for Spellbound*
I used to be left surprisingly moved after watching Netflix’s latest animated journey Spellbound. It is no shock that these kind of movies typically discover deep emotional themes, however Spellbound has an extremely touching message that many households will recognize.
Spellbound is an ideal family-friendly movie that unravels properly with out stunning anybody. So you’ll be able to perceive my shock once I left the Spellbound screening with a tear in my eye as I found that this wasn’t simply your common children film – it truly serves an important goal, in serving to kids perceive divorce in a constructive manner.
Spellbound follows Princess Ellian (Rachel Zegler), the spritely younger daughter of King Solon (Javier Bardem) and Queen Ellsmere (Nicole Kidman) of Lumbria, as she goes on an journey to interrupt the spell that has turned her mother and father into monsters. It might sound just like the plot of your common kids’s fantasy, however the movie is brimming with metaphors about separation, grief, and household that you do not even notice till in direction of the tip.
A standard fairy story with a contemporary twist
In Spellbound, 15-year-old Ellian has been pressured to grow to be a caregiver to her personal mother and father as they’ve grow to be a pair of rambunctious monsters inflicting havoc within the fortress that’s the household’s house. Whereas making an attempt to tame her rollicking royals and conceal their unlucky transformation from their topics, she additionally has to imagine different grownup obligations like ruling the dominion alone with the steering of Minister Bolinar (John Lithgow) and Minister Nazara Susceptible (Jenifer Lewis). After Ellian summons two magical Oracles for assist, the wisecracking pair inform her that the King and Queen have “misplaced their gentle” and she or he should enterprise into the Darkish Forest to the Lake of Gentle and get it again.
What follows is a magical, musical delight that is straight out of a Disney journey with its brilliant, imaginative world and strange creatures that jogged my memory of my favourite Disney story Tangled. Ellian’s quest is not all tune and dance although, as she and her monster mother and father should keep away from being swallowed by The Darkness, a black twister that consumes individuals’s unfavourable feelings and transforms them right into a monster. This implies the trio want to remain upbeat, which is a tall order given the King and Queen’s fixed bickering and disagreements after they keep in mind the way to speak once more, the spell having robbed them of the ability of speech.
The compulsory glad ending seems to be on the horizon after they attain the Lake of Gentle – however this isn’t your conventional fairy story. Because the King and Queen step into the golden shimmering pool, it is revealed that their fractured marriage is the reason for their transformation. The couple’s steady quarreling is the rationale why The Darkness got here and turned them into monsters, a intelligent metaphor for the way damaging and transformative a damaged relationship may be on a household.
As soon as the King and Queen notice the detrimental impact their marital points are having on their daughter, they make the choice to separate. Sadly, this revelation sends Ellian right into a spiral of anger, despair and resentment that’s heartbreaking to observe. Although I have never gone via this expertise, I immediately empathized with the sense of devastation, betrayal, and inside turmoil that many kids undergo when their mother and father divorce. Ellian’s woe quickly attracts the wrath of The Darkness and her mother and father put apart their variations, and be a part of forces to save lots of their daughter earlier than she’s became a monster herself. Finally, due to her mother and father’ limitless reassurance, consolation and love, Ellian involves phrases with their divorce, and goes again to being the glad lady she was earlier than.
Divorce can carry enormous modifications to a toddler’s life that may really feel just like the world is ending. However this potential greatest Netflix film approaches the subject with a constructive mindset in a manner that may assist kids deal with divorce and discover their feelings. It is an necessary message that I am certain children and adults will profit from, and Spellbound will certainly make you shed a tear or two, even when you have not skilled a life-changing occasion like this.
Spellbound is offered to stream on the greatest streaming service from November 22.
