Encanto

image for Encanto

Short takes

Not suitable under 5; parental guidance to 8 (violence, scary scenes, themes)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Encanto
  • a review of Encanto completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 1 December 2021.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 5 Not suitable due to violence, scary scenes, and themes.
Children aged 5–8 Parental guidance recommended due to violence, scary scenes, and themes.
Children over the age of 8 Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Encanto
Classification: PG
Consumer advice lines: Mild sense of peril
Length: 109 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Blessed by an enchanted candle while fleeing for their lives, Abuela Alma (Maria Cecilia Botero) raises her three small children to be of service to the community in which they live. As they grow, each child is granted a special gift: one can see the future; one can heal with food; and one can change the weather. As they each have their own families, their children too are blessed with special powers. Everyone has one - everyone except Mirabel (Stehanie Beatriz) who wishes with all her heart that she had a special gift that would make her family proud. As her youngest cousin is blessed with his gifts, Mirabel struggles with feelings of regret, sorrow and uselessness, and suddenly sees cracks forming throughout their family’s magical home, threatening the flame of the candle and threatening to tear them all apart. It seems that Mirabel can see something the others can’t, though her sister Luisa (Jessica Darrow) can feel her super strength waning. In a desperate bid to help her family, Mirabel tracks down her elusive uncle Bruno (John Leguizamo) who disappeared years before, discovering that the future he foresaw is coming to pass, the house is being torn apart, and that somehow she is at the centre of it all. Determined not to let her family down, Mirabel works on repairing relationships and begins to understand that sometimes not having a ‘gift’ can be the greatest gift of all.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Family breakdown; The pressure to be perfect and to hide how you truly feel; Feelings of uselessness, worthlessness and invisibility; Fear of the past repeating itself; Running away to try to protect others.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie, including:

  • Men on horseback are shown fire-bombing the houses of villagers.
  • It is implied that Abuela Alma’s husband is killed by these men as one is shown holding a sword. She watches in horror, clinging to her babies, and then collapses to the ground in tears when he doesn’t return.
  • Mirabel is nearly crushed to death when her house collapses around her.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • There are some flashes of Bruno who looks like a mad, crazy person with wild hair and dark shadows under his eyes. At one point he is lurking in the shadows and the next moment he is gone. This is followed by an intense chase scene that may disturb some young children.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

  • Mirabel is nearly killed when her uncle’s room collapses around her, trapping her in a dark cave filled with flowing sand and falling debris. The scene is very intense as she is rushing to save shards of a prophecy before the whole place falls apart and for a moment it looks like she will not make it.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

  • Nothing further of concern.

Product placement

  • None noted.

Sexual references

  • None noted.

Nudity and sexual activity

  • None noted.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

  • Abuela Alba insinuates that Mirabel may have had too much to drink when she (Mirabel) claims that the house is in trouble, even though no cracks are found.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • Loser.
  • Stupid perfect.

In a nutshell

Encanto is a Disney Studios, animated musical set in Colombia. Filled with colour, culture and well-developed characters, this is a film that all but the youngest family members can enjoy. One thing to note is that the film does contain sequences of flashing lights which can be a trigger to those with photosensitive epilepsy or other photosensitivities.

The main messages from this movie are that everyone not only has gifts (both born with or developed) but that each individual is a gift.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • Teamwork
  • Love
  • Community service
  • Empathy
  • Honesty
  • Selflessness.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • Running away to protect those you love.
  • Allowing fear that the past will repeat itself to cloud your vision of the present or future.
  • Forcing yourself to feel or behave a certain way because of the expectations of others.
  • Allowing those you love to be sidelined because they do not have the abilities that other family members do.