Movie Review: “Brave”

Disney Pixar, 2012
Director: Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman, and Steve Purcell
Rated PG, 100 minutes

Reviewed by: Alexys Butler, 17
Massachusetts

Brave is a very different movie for Disney. In the past, Disney princesses have been damsels in distress awaiting their Prince Charming. In Brave, Merida, voiced by Kelly Macdonald, is a spunky, confident, and fearless princess far from the ordinary.  She is a Scottish princess trying to break away from tradition by creating her own life, instead of the life etched in stone for her by her mother, Queen Elinor, voiced by Emma Thompson.

Princess Merida is stuck in a world where every day is planned for her. At the age of 18 she is being forced into marriage, with  her betrothed chosen from among the winner of three men from neighboring kingdoms who wish for her hand in marriage. Faced with choosing among these men she has no desire to be with, she decides to change her fate by entering the contest and competing for her own hand. Not only does deciding to compete for the right to marry who she pleases cause much uproar in the kingdom, it’s the beginning of her journey to change her destiny.

Brave is a great movie. It is set in medieval Scotland, a beautiful land full of green and lush trees. Unlike other Disney/Pixar movies, Brave gives viewers the chance to see many parts of the local environment and folklore, including  the castle, the forest, and the beautiful trees that inspired the movie’s landscape. It also explores, in a sensitive, realistic way, how the mother-daughter relationship must change as girls grow up.

Brave is the kind of movie that reminds people that although we may be born into predetermined expectations and roles, ultimately, our destiny is in our own hands and we have the power to change our fate. Tradition has the power to both uphold a family or a large community, and the power to suppress people from living the lives they were meant to. Brave is a movie for girls who want to control their own fate and/or change their relationship with their mother.