Anastasia

History can be both an interesting, if not slightly uncomfortable topic to discuss with children; either they are too young to care or even understand the ins and outs of the matter, or the gruesome details are too extreme for a fragile mind to properly grasp (nor should they have too yet). That’s why detailing famous world events through film is a great way to introduce them in a way that sheds light on the topic, but also makes it entertaining and memorable in the process. But if they handle it in a way that Anastasia was handled, history will never be one of their strong points. Set in Russia during the reign of the Romanov’s, the evil Rasputin (voiced by Christopher Lloyd) sells his soul to place a curse on the Romanov’s for disowning him and uses his new-fond magical powers to kill every last living member of the Russian royal family during the great siege on the castle, except for the Dowager Empress (voiced by Angela Lansbury) and her granddaughter Anastasia (voiced then by Kirsten Dunst), who unfortunately winds up getting separated . 10 years later, Anastasia, going by the name of Anya (now voiced by Meg Ryan) has lost her memory of her past and longs to find her true family, who she believes are in Paris thanks to a locket given to her by her grandmother that she still had with her when she was separated. She gets the help of two con men, Dimitri, and Vladimir (voiced by John Cusack and Kelsey Grammer) to take her to Paris where she will hopefully discover who she truly is.  Along the way a small romance begins to bloom between Anya and Dimitri, and all the while Rasputin, still clinging to life in purgatory, has his powers returned to him thanks to his albino bat minion Bartok (voiced by Hank Azaria) and once again tries to murder Anastasia to truly complete the curse and wipe out the Romanov family line for good. Made by the legendary animation director Don Bluth, responsible for films like The Land Before Time, An American Tale and The Secret of Nimh, it would seem that an animated venture into Russian history would work well for him, with his stylized colorful art style and gritty realistic tone. Unfortunately, the time this was made was around the time his movies were not at their best, and while definitely better than some of those, it left this film not having the best chance of survival. It did do well critically and was the most profitable from Bluth and Fox Animation Studios and out of his ”worst material”, this is easily one of the better ones as it features some memorable scenes, good performances and solid moments of animation and music, but the formulaic and even lazy story, the basic characters, and the clear Disney envy exuding off the project do hold it back quite a bit.

Taking inspiration from the 1956 film of the same name by Anatole Litvak as well as the 1954 play created by Marcelle Maurette, it’s almost not worth judging the movie for not being historically accurate as its meant for younger audiences first, it never states to be a true story, and anything involving a talking bat-like creature being the minion to a magical wizard who sold his soul to green evil spirits should probably be taken at face value. With that said, it doesn’t even attempt to make the story interesting to compensate, despite having inklings of interesting elements seeped within itself. Its understandable that the more dark and aggressive side to the Romanov story would be at least suppressed, but what it replaced with is as predictable and lazy as stories go. It has all the workings of a rom-com with the handling of its leads, and its just an element of this film that not only feels lazy and unneeded, but also takes away from what could’ve worked about this story. Occasionally there are sparks of unpleasant and even downright creepy and grim parts to this story that help make it stand out and allow some of its scenes to be memorable (the opening is pretty good as well as a little harrowing) and there’s even a decent aspect of heart and emotion involving Anya and her desire to find her lost family (leading to a great scene involving her reuniting with her grandmother), but these moments have to contend with traditional kids movie tropes and cliches that really slow the film down. Anastasia reclaiming her lost memories about her murdered family and returning to the throne as a ruler sounds like a great story arc, but the lack of any risks being taken in this script written by Susan Gauthier, Bruce Graham, Bob Tzudiker and Noni White means that the story suffers from being unbelievably bland. The dark and mysterious tale of the Romanov’s is something that is probably a little too mature and uncomfortable for a company like Disney, who try to keep things family friendly and not trend in the realms of real tragedies (although that didn’t stop them from making Pocahontas), but the princess aspect and the marketability of this premise meant that another company who were willing to take that jump swoop and bank on that element, and it seems that’s what happened. Bluth and usual co-director Gary Goldman seemingly tried to replicate the Disney style through the animation style, the musical numbers, the animal sidekicks and the female heroine, but it backfired horribly on them because of how much it doesn’t match with Bluth’s regular style, one that would work pretty well with this narrative.

While most of the characters on their own are perfectly fine, you can once again feel the Disney-ism coming off all of them and it starts to become distracting. Anya has a lot of qualities that feel very much akin to the Disney princess formula, the romance between her and Dimitri feels like a very staged romance even lesser than most Disney relationships, the comic relief has a Disney air to them as well as the animal sidekicks, and the villain has a set-up fitting of a Disney villain, it is all over this cast, but for the most part, they aren’t bad parts. While not the most complex, they are likeable enough and are helped out by muddled but still decent voice acting. Easily the best actor in this film is Angela Lansbury as the grandmother, who delivers a very touching performance that leads to a lot of great scene with whoever she shares the screen with, which is expected when you have a great talent like her. Meg Ryan as the lead is very hit and miss; sometimes she does a good job and you do feel for her struggle and want to see her reunite with her family (her best scenes are probably with Lansbury), and then other times it definitely needed another take and you can feel the traditional Meg Ryan persona come out which feels very out of place and overly glossy as well, John Cusack’s voice is distracting in this kind of story (much like Ryan’s), but on a pure acting level, he does fine, supporting roles like Kelsey Grammer and Bernadette Peters come across as very cartoony, but also very distinct and full of character, and Hank Azaria as this bat creature Bartok has a very weird accent that will either annoy your child or entertain them enough, its wavers from person to person. Rasputin as the villain is unfortunately the worst part of this movie; though his design leaves a memorable appearance and Christopher Lloyd is always nice to hear, he has very little screen presence, a motivation that is incredibly weak and generic, little to no standout personality traits, and not that much of a threat in the grand scheme of things, constantly failing more than anything else.

For what this film lacks in the story structure and characters, most of the side elements are handled much better. Being a Don Bluth movie, the film does looks amazing. A city like Russia portraying the story of Anastasia is a tale ripe to be told in animated form, and while nothing drastic, it has some great environments, lively colors, and amazing attention to detail. Bluth animation seems to illustrate color very well; they always have such prominent streaks and fill the space very effectively, creating such a strong emotion just through color alone; any scene with strong color delivers a specific emotion that usually hits bullseye. The character designs once again feel much more like Disney designs than Bluth designs; Bluth characters have much more detail in the textures and feature much more ugly features and layouts, while these characters have very simple layouts with very flat textures on the skin. The main leads have different proportions from the rest of the cast, with thinner more realistic looking models, which can sometimes look a little awkward in certain moments when it tries to replicate Bluth animation, but they still have some great expressions and fluid movements. The movie also sounds very good, with David Newman producing a soundtrack that feels like it fits the location; even though there is nothing as strong and commanding like traditional Russian music, it still feels like it fits the movie with some nice instrumentals. The songs are also a very noticeable element of the film, with Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty producing numbers that, while not all are great, are well made musical numbers. Two stand out as really good; Once Upon a December is a very nice waltz like song with beautiful imagery, haunting subtext, and has a nice tie in to the story involving a melody played on a music box, and In The Dark Of The Night is a great villain song; with booming instrumentals, catchy melody and filled with passion and energy, even if the lyrics and visuals accompanying the song don’t always mesh with the subject matter and tone (a song about murder doesn’t really need prancing pink bugs). The other songs have great music, a decent rhythm and on their own aren’t bad numbers but the lyrics can be a little awkward, and they again feel very much like washed out Disney songs.

Anastasia clearly doesn’t match Don Bluth’s earlier work and harbors many issues that hinder what could produce a truly fascinating movie as well as a nice introduction for children to learn about Russian history, but it definitely has elements that are still worth seeing. It’s probably for the best that this idea isn’t tackled again as literally digging up such a tragic moment in human history and pushing it as children’s entertaining does feel a little insulting, so for what this film did at the time, it may not be perfect, but it has its shining aspects. Some of the animation is very nice to witness, a few of the songs can leave a person humming, and there are some decent ideas within the narrative as well as an occasionally good creepy or emotional moment, but it just needed a better fleshed out story and characters to leave a more impressionable impact that didn’t feel like Disney leftovers. A child can watch this version and like it fine, and adults can stomach the stupid rom-com drama and pay witness to some nice aesthetically pleasing aspects. A harmless look into a story that has much more under its belt. Not for history buffs, but worth a look by princess movie buffs, glance upon a tale that isn’t quite as you would remember.