Frozen (2013)

If I had a pound for every time I've sat through Frozen, I wouldn't need a day job. My daughter went through a phase, and I use the word "phase" very loosely because it lasted the better part of two years, where this film was the only acceptable viewing in the household. We're talking morning screenings, afternoon screenings, background viewings while she played. I've seen Frozen more times than I've seen some of my favourite films combined, and that experience colours everything I'm about to say. Fair warning.

Here's the thing though: it's not bad. That's almost the most frustrating part. If it were genuinely rubbish, I could resent it cleanly. Instead, it's perfectly decent, and that's somehow harder to live with after the hundredth sitting.

The animation is, genuinely, something to admire. The snow, in particular, has a texture and weight to it that still impresses me even now. Disney clearly pushed hard on what the technology could do, and it shows. The reworking of Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen is also a clever bit of storytelling. Reframing the central relationship around two sisters rather than a romantic pursuit was a smart, fresh angle, and the twist on who the actual villain turns out to be raised a few eyebrows when it landed. Credit where it's due.

And then there are the songs. Oh, the songs. Let It Go has haunted my waking hours like a persistent spectre of parental suffering. I have heard it belted at full volume from the back seat of my car, from the bathroom, from the landing at half past ten at night. It's a genuinely well-constructed song, I'll admit that much, but familiarity breeds a very specific kind of contempt. Do You Want to Build a Snowman? is the one that really gets me now, if I'm honest. There's something about its relentless cheerful pleading that bores straight into your skull after the fortieth replay.

But strip away the spectacle and the earworms, and the plot is fairly thin on the ground. The pacing wobbles in the second act, and for all the praise Frozen received for being subversive or progressive, it still lands squarely in standard Disney territory. The beats are familiar, the emotional manipulation is well-practised, and the resolution ties everything up in exactly the way you'd expect. It's been called a reinvention of the princess film, and maybe it nudged things slightly, but I'd argue something like The Hunchback of Notre Dame took wilder, bolder swings and gets far less credit for it.

What Frozen does brilliantly is connect with children, and I don't say that dismissively. Watching my daughter's face light up, every single time, regardless of how many viewings she'd already clocked, reminded me that these films aren't really made for me sitting there cataloguing narrative weaknesses. They're made for her. And by that measure, Frozen is an enormous success. It did something to her imagination that was real and lasting, and I'd be a miserable sod not to acknowledge that.

I've since had a look at Frozen II as well, and my feelings there are, if anything, even more complicated. But that's a conversation for another time.

Two and a half stars. It's enough. It's perfectly, maddeningly enough. And if I never hear Do You Want to Build a Snowman? again, it'll still be too soon.

Rating: ★★½  | Year: 2013  | Watched: 2018-08-05

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Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US

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More from Chris Buck: Tarzan (1999) · Surf's Up (2007) · Frozen II (2019)
More with Idina Menzel: Frozen II (2019)
More from the 2010s: Wonder (2017) · Beautiful Boy (2018) · The Witch (2015) · What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
More animation: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025)
More family: Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Wonder (2017) · Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anastasia (1997)