People keep saying, “If you loved Tangled, then you’ll love Frozen.” The movies are very comparable: both are newer Disney movies with strong female leads. Frozen embodies the stereotypical Disney movie with bad parenting, princesses and true love which overcomes tragedy. However, the stereotype is switched up when the true love is between the sisters.
Sisters, Elsa and Anna, the female leads, are the princesses of Arendelle. Elsa, the older sister, is born with the magical power to create snow and shape it to her desires. All her life, Elsa has to keep her powers a secret, locked in her room for her whole childhood. Their parents die at a young age, so Elsa must be coronated. On her Coronation Day, the gates to the castle will be opened for a ball.
With no parents and a sister she never sees, Anna has a love-deprived upbringing. So, when the opportunity presents itself, on Elsa’s Coronation Day, Anna quickly falls in love with the first boy she meets. She agrees to marry Hans, but when Anna tells Elsa, Elsa is furious. She is so angry, Elsa unleashes a huge snow storm in the middle of summer and runs away. With a strong ballad, ‘Let it Go’, sung by Elsa, she decides she will live alone on the mountain, where she can be herself and not hurt anyone.
Anna goes after her sister during the storm, and she meets an ice seller, Kristoff, and his reindeer companion, Sven. Pulled by Sven, Kristoff and Anna make their way up the North Mountain. Along the way, they meet a talking snowman, who likes warm hugs. Olaf sings a comedic song about his desire to see what happens to frozen things in summer. Once they reach Elsa’s castle, Anna fails to convince Elsa to come back to Arendelle. Elsa shoots Anna with ice in the heart. Kristoff thinks his troll friends will be able to help Anna’s frozen heart. The elder troll tells Kristoff that he can’t heal Anna with magic; only an act of true love can bring Anna back to health. Kristoff knows he has to take Anna back to Arendelle, where Hans, her fiance, is waiting.
When they get to Arendelle, Hans refuses to kiss Anna to heal her. Hans reveals that he doesn’t actually love Anna; he just wanted to be king. Olaf helps Anna to escape to find Kristoff, her true love. In the climax of the movie, Anna comes to Elsa’s rescue when Hans tries to kill her. In Anna’s act of true love for her sister, Anna’s heart is unfrozen.
Because the true love was between sisters, Disney sends the message to young girls that they don’t need a man to be happy and that they are strong on their own. Despite this change of events, Anna still gets to live happily ever after with Kristoff, and the eternal winter is broken. Elsa no longer fears her powers, and Olaf gets to see summer, but doesn’t melt because he is given his own personal snow cloud from Elsa. Overall, the movie is classically Disney, but the twists that make it special make the movie that much greater. With epic songs strategically placed, a heart-warming storyline, lovable characters, and a lot of laughter, Frozen is a great addition to the Disney legacy.