Frozen: A Movie Review

BY KIMBERLY BENNETT
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In Ancient Greek, there are four different words to describe feelings of love: agape, eros, philia and storge. Most spiritual books and films, such as Facing the Giants, Courageous and Janette Oke’s Love Comes Softly series, focus on agape love, where God’s love is unconditional and selfless towards all humankind. Many romantic works, like the Harlequin books, E. L. James’s Fifty Shades of Grey and James Cameron’s Titanic, center on eros—where the attraction between two lovers is mostly physical or sexual. Sherlock Holmes is a great example of philia—a bromantic love through friendship between its main characters, Sherlock and Watson.

However, Disney’s newest movie, Frozen—directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee— portrays a form of storge love between the protagonists, Elsa (Idina Menzel, Wicked) and her sister Anna (Kristin Bell, Veronica Mars). When she was born, Princess Elsa of Arendelle was gifted with mystical powers, enabling her to control the forces of winter. Elsa and her younger sister, Ana are close as young girls, but tragedy forces the young snow maiden to isolate herself within her room to keep the people of Arendelle safe.

As the princesses grow into beautiful, young women, Princess Elsa must claim the throne and become the queen of Arendelle. Her powers have grown stronger and she is more out of control than ever. As she readies herself for her coronation, Anna sings and dances around the kingdom, excited to finally open up the palace’s gates and see her sister again. Though a charming man, Prince Hans (Santino Fontana, Submissions Only) of the Southern Isles, quickly sweeps Princess Anna off her feet and they fall in love. After Queen Elsa’s coronation and during the court ball, Anna asks her sister permission to marry the prince she had only just met. To Anna’s surprise, the queen disapproves of the marriage. Her immediate disapproval sends the sisters off into a verbal fight, causing the Queen to accidentally use her powers. All of the kingdom’s guests, including Anna (you will find out why if you have not seen the film), are greatly surprised at Elsa’s powers and presume she practices witchcraft.

To keep the people of Arendelle safe, Elsa vanishes into the mountains. Unfortunately and unknowingly to the queen, she has accidentally created an eternal winter storm throughout the Kingdom. For the love of her sister, Princess Anna convinces her fellow townspeople that Elsa is not a witch and then searches for her sister. On her journey, she meets a young man, Kristoff (Jonathon Groff, Glee), and travels with him; his reindeer, Sven and her long-lost snowman-friend, Olaf (Josh Gad, 1600 Penn), in pursuit of finding Elsa.

Can Princess Anna find her sister before the winter storm swallows all of Arendelle? More importantly, can the queen save herself from the winter swirling inside her own heart?

Frozen has won 11 awards, including a Golden Globe award in 2014, for Best Animated Feature Film.

Look for Frozen on DVD starting Mar. 18, 2014, and prepare yourself for a true Disney film filled with lots of ice, a beautiful score, and fun, lyrical songs like “Do You Wanna Build a Snowman?”, “For the First Time in Forever”, “Love is an Open Door!”, “Let It Go” and “In Summer!”