Saturday Evening Cartoons: The Princess and the Frog (2009)

     The Princess and the Frog was released on December 11th, 2009. The 49th Disney animated feature film it was the first film the studio produced featuring traditional, hand-drawn animation since Home on the Range in 2004. It is a loose retelling of The Frog Princess by E. D. Baker (itself an adaptation of the Brothers Grimm fairy-tale). 

     In this film, an aspiring young chef named Tiana (Anika Noni Rose) hopes to one day own her own restaurant and sees her chance when her rich friend Charlotte La Bouff (Jennifer Cody) puts on a masquerade ball for Prince Naveen of Maldonia (Bruno Campos), a foreign noble who has come to New Orleans hoping to marry into money after being cut off financially by his parents. Charlotte asks Tiana to bake for the ball, which will give her enough money to purchase the building for her restaurant. Chaos ensues when Naveen and his valet, Lawrence, go to a witch doctor (the unscrupulous Dr. Facilier, voiced by Keith David) and the prince is turned into a frog. He hopes that a kiss from a princess will change him back to normal and asks Tiana (who is dressed like a princess at the urging of Charlotte) to oblige. Since she is not a real princess this backfires, and Tiana too is turned into an amphibian. 

     The Princess and the Frog is somewhat unique in the pantheon of Disney fairy tales for giving both the Princess and the Prince a story arc. Tiana's main weakness, at the beginning of the film is her concern for her career above all else. Her mother (Oprah Winfrey) continually pushes her to "find a man" and, though Tiana dismisses this as being old fashion, her mother is, in the end, right. There's more to life then making money (even if its by doing something you love) and Tiana must learn this over the course of the film. Naveen, on the other hand, is a lazy spend thrift who thinks that marrying a rich southern belle will solve all of his problems. He must learn the value of hard work and take responsibility for himself. As they grow closer together, and begin falling in love, Tiana and Naveen learn from one another and their character arcs are perfectly intertwined with the development of their romance. 

     Worthy of remark, especially from a traditional Catholic perspective, is the film portrayal of voodoo. In most Disney fairy tales the magic is vaguely defined and not terribly similar to real world occult practices. Here, Dr. Facilier uses tarot cards and communes with evil spirits, a practice which ultimately leads to his own downfall. This seems to me like a pretty clear cut condemnation of witchcraft and meddling with the occult. It is, unfortunately, undermined somewhat by Mama Odie (Jenifer Lewis), a benign voodoo priestess who helps our heroes defeat the wicked witch doctor. But her occultism is much more in the tradition of the loosely defined Disney fairy godmother and she makes it clear to Tiana and Naveen that magic won't solve their problems. The traditional church wedding at the end of the film is also a plus. In the end, the film's portrayal of witchcraft leans more toward the morally correct kind then not. 

     The cast all do a great job, especially Anika Noni Rose and Bruno Campos, who have great chemistry together. Michael-Leon Wooley provides some boisterous comic relief as Louis, an alligator who dreams of joining a jazz band. Jim Cummings is also great as the other animal sidekick character, Ray, a Cajun firefly, whose unrequited love for the Evening Star, Venus, which he believes to be a female firefly named Evangeline, helps teach Tiana and Naveen about the true nature of love. Oprah Winfrey and Terrence Howard are both solid as Tiana's parents, who are both much more grounded and sympathetic then your average Disney parent figures. Keith David is perfectly cast as the nefarious Dr. Facilier while Jenifer Lewis does a good job as the eccentric Mama Odie. Finally, Jennifer Cody and John Goodman are fun as the friendly but buffoonish La Bouffs.

     The music, by Randy Newman, is a mix of jazz, zydeco, blues, and gospel. It fits the films setting perfectly and Newman comes up with some memorable tunes, even if his lyrics (a weak point of the composer's work in general) are a little twee. The highlights are "Friends on the Other Side", Keith David's spooky villain-song and "Gonna Take You There" a Cajun melody sung by Jim Cummings. Unlike the renaissance Disney films, no professional vocalists were used for The Princess and the Frog but, given the more Jazzy nature of the score as compared to the more dramatic, Broadway style of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, the voice actors do well enough.

     To direct The Princess and the Frog the studio went to Ron Clements and John Musker, who had helmed The Little Mermaid and Aladdin during the renaissance era. The two had left the studio after the relative failure of Treasure Planet and were coaxed by John Lasseter, the new head of the animation department, to return for this film. Lasseter, who had left the studio in the 80's to pursue his computer animation ideas, hoped the film would kick-start a new era for Walt Disney Animation, where CGI and hand drawn animation would exist side-by-side. Sadly, the film was only moderately successful at the box office and this, coupled with the relative failure of Winnie the Pooh in 2011, effectively spelled the death knell for traditional animation at the studio.

     The style of animation that Clements and Musker decided on for The Princess and the Frog hearkens back to the studio's early days. Both Bambi and Lady and the Tramp were particularly influential, the former serving as a model for the naturalistic bayou scenes and the latter for the film's turn-of-the-century New Orleans setting. The character designs abandoned the more realistic, CGI influenced look of Treasure Planet in favor of a more dynamic, sculptural look that had been favored in the studio's output in the 50's. The result is a true return to form for the studio, a film that hearkens back to the visual style of the classic Disney features while updating it using more modern techniques.

 Score: 9/10