Coco was the first of the movies we’ve watched so far that I was actually sort of looking forward to. We made a family event of it; I made the kids some popcorn, and we all settled down together and watched the movie. EldestGirl had seen half of it before, but had given up when it had become “scary”.
You sort of know where you are with Pixar. You’re in safe hands. And it didn’t disappoint. Firstly, and strikingly, it’s a beautiful film to look at. The animation is superb and the colours are a bold, bright, Mexican palette.
The story of a little boy who wants to play music – but is banned from doing so by his music-hating family is so-far-so-normal – until an unusual turn of events flips him – still alive – into the land of the dead.
I won’t plot spoil too much, because this one is absolutely worth watching. I had a minor niggle that the main characters (the boy, his dog, the baddie, the man who helps him) are all male, but this was assuaged slightly by the fact that his family is clearly a matriarchy, and his great-great-grandmother, abandoned by her husband to become a single parent, makes the family wealthy, not by cupcake-making, or any other lazy female-entrepreneur cliche, but by making shoes.
Coco is the name of the little boy’s great-grandmother, and the movie is also kind of about her. As you may expect from more recent Pixar movies (the new Toy Story movies, plus Up), Coco is a bit of a tear-jerker, but it’s done without too much sentimentality, and – hardened atheist that I am – it had me, just for a moment or two, wistful for the rather lovely Mexican belief of the much-missed dead coming to visit their family once a year.
A really great family movie. The first one I’ve seen so far that’s worthy of its place in the top 100.
5/5
