Spellbound review: Netflixs animated adventure finds its magic right at the end
The following review contains spoilers for the ending of Spellbound.
For a movie that features dark curses, enchanted forests, and flying cat-creatures, Spellbound is surprisingly devoid of any magic. At least, not until the end.
Directed by Vicky Jenson (Shrek), this animated adventure about a young princess (voiced by West Side Story's Rachel Zegler) trying to free her parents from a spell is an unfortunately formulaic ride for its first two thirds. Its final act, on the other hand, proves to be a mature and compassionate examination of parental separation. But is it enough to save the rest of the movie?
What is Spellbound about?
Stop me if you've heard this one before: A princess in a magical kingdom struggles with a curse that threatens to throw her whole world into disarray. It's a tale as old as time, albeit one that can work fairly well if given an appropriate twist. In Spellbound, that twist is that it's not the princess who's dealing with the curse: It's her parents. And she's left to deal with the fallout.
Princess Ellian (Zegler) of Lumbria is about to turn 15. But instead of celebrating, she's busy caring for her parents, who are monsters. Literally. About a year ago, a curse that feeds on "dark feelings" transformed them into (frankly, adorable) beasts with seemingly no memory of who they once were. Since then, Ellian and her parents' ministers Bolinar (voiced by John Lithgow) and Nazara (voiced by Jennifer Lewis) have kept the transformation a secret from the rest of Lumbria as they try to figure out their next steps. But the stress of making sure her parents don't escape (or eat anyone) is clearly weighing on Ellian. All she wants is to reverse the spell and bring things back to the way they were.
To save her parents, Ellian embarks on a daring quest into the Dark Forest of Eternal Darkness, where she'll meet with the powerful Oracles of the Sun and Moon (voiced by Tituss Burgess and Nathan Lane), cross dangerous deserts and rivers, and hide from the dark energy that cursed her parents.
Despite the occasional fun touch — shout out to the odd couple Oracles — Ellian's journey plays out with an unfortunate blandness. World-building elements go woefully underdeveloped, like a magical key fob that seemingly has several settings and abilities, yet only ever sends out generic purple sparkles to get the job done. Tropes like Ellian's purple furry sidekick Flink feel overdone after mere seconds, a sentiment that only increases after Flink and Bolinar suffer an unexpected body swap.
Making matters worse are the film's songs, which sound nice enough (Zegler's voice here should get you more excited for her turn as Snow White) but are instantly forgettable. The animation falters too, at times feeling oddly textureless. Take the darkness that hunts Ellian and her parents through the forest. It takes the shape of a black tornado, yet it reads as flat and slack onscreen, to the point that it doesn't feel threatening at all.
Because of these many shortcomings, I'd almost written Spellbound off entirely as it approached its halfway point. But then something extraordinary happened: Ellian's monster parents began talking, hinting at a much more mature and complex story of family relationships.
Spellbound's ending is a solid rumination on how divorce impacts children.
Ellian's parents don't master speech right away. Her mother (voiced by Nicole Kidman) and father (voiced by Javier Bardem) puzzle through language, unable to string together sentences or say anything more than "girl!" when talking to Ellian. And yes, hearing Kidman and Bardem's voices come out of giant monsters is absolutely as delightful as it sounds.
Yet as Ellian and her parents forge ahead on their quest, tensions rise between Lumbria's king and queen. They can barely get through a conversation without snarling at each other, causing Ellian even more anxiety as she struggles to keep her family together. With all this parental infighting, Spellbound makes you wonder why the curse — which, again, stems from dark emotions — really happened in the first place.
Just as Ellian's parents are about to become humans again, they realize that the source of the curse was themselves. Their constant arguing made them the monsters they are today: the angry couple who's so different from the happy parents Ellian remembers, to the point that they've become completely unrecognizable. Now, they don't want to go back to being those humans, since it caused them so much pain.
Of course, that news destroys Ellian, who has fought so hard for her parents every step of the way. Do they not love her enough to complete the last stage of their journey? After everything she did for them, why would they not do this for her? She's gone through so much stress trying to keep this family together, and now her parents want to throw it all away? It's a remarkable allegory for the pressure kids may put on themselves to resolve tensions within a fractured family, and of how they may feel guilty for a parental separation or divorce — something that's totally out of their control!
Similarly remarkable is what comes next: The king and queen apologize to Ellian, admitting that they didn't consider how hurt she would feel by their decision to remain apart. They reiterate how much they love her, and how much they will always love her. And while their separation will take work and getting used to, they vow that they will do whatever they can to prioritize her and help her through this transition. And guess what? It works. A flash forward proves that Ellian and her parents are getting used to the new normal and are working through it, day by day.
For Spellbound to present separation (the word "divorce" is never used, yet it's clear that's what this is) as a viable happily ever after feels like uncharted territory for a children's movie. Yet it is also so heartening to see, as this is the reality for so many young people out there. Spellbound treats Ellian's experience with so much empathy, and it also presents the separation as infinitely more healthy (and frankly, normal) for her family than any attempts to keep up facades. That's a bold, necessary statement to make about family relationships, one that many might find healing. So while Spellbound's exterior may not always break the mold, its heart is more than happy to break new ground, gifting us a truly special ending.