‘Princess and the Frog’ a funny, fine, follow-your-dreams musical – Chestnut Hill Local

by Bill Wine

Each week, veteran film critic Bill Wine will look back at an important film that is worth watching, either for the first time or again.

As if further proof were needed that we live in the Golden Age of Animation, along comes The Princess and the Frog.

Instant classic.

Withcomputer-generated cartoons dominatingthe 2009 animation landscape, this "throwback," the first traditionally animated that is, hand-drawn Disney feature since 2004,is a reinvention of the Grimm Brothers' fairy tale, "The Frog Prince."

And it's an original and irresistible musical taking its place alongside The Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King with its music first among equals. In a film with so many admirable features, it's tough to know where to start the gushing praise.

It's also a reminder of just how warm and lush and expressive and vibrant and smooth and flowing and utterly captivating 2-D animation can be: this one bursts with life.

An ageless fable with a twist, itcenters onTiana (Anika Noni Rose) Disney's first African-American heroine a hardworking waitresswho lives and works in the French Quarter in New Orleans during the Jazz Age of the 1920s, and yearns to own and operate her own restaurant.

WhenPrince Naveen of Maldonia, on a visit tothe Big Easy, cuts a deal withvoodoo practitioner Dr. Facilier, the latter turns him into a frog. His hope is that, given the legend,a kiss from a beautiful woman like Tiana will turn him back into a human. But when they kiss, something unexpected happens.

Suddenly it's amphibians on parade, and if things are ever to get back to normal and the spell is to be reversed, Tiana and Naveen will have to make it back to New Orleans via the alligator-infested bayou.

Co-directors Ron Clements and John Musker eschew the celebrity-voiceapproach (although Oprah Winfrey and Terrence Howardchime in briefly as young Tiana's parents). Instead, they castspeaking and singing voices rather than names with accomplished performers who may not necessarily be marquee names.

And they give theirlayered, cleverly scriptednarrative a tremendous sense of time and especially place: This is, among other things, an eloquentlove letter to The Crescent City.

But the shining star is composer Randy Newman. His gloriously melodiousscore a musical gumbo of Dixieland jazz, blues, gospel,zydeco, and Tin Pan Alleykeeps topping itselfas atoe-tapping, finger-snapping, lemme-hear-that-again delight for young and old.

Newmans songs garnered two of the films three Oscar nods, and the film was also nominated for Best Animated Feature. Box office returns, however, were modest at best.

As for the co-directors' handling of the lavish musical production numbers, as they'refueled by Newman's great songs, it's nothing short of superb. Broadway numbers should carry us away this completely.

A funny and fine follow-your-dreamsmusical, the G-rated The Princess and the Frog is a tuneful 'toon that will make you swoon.

Bill Wine is an Emmy-winning film critic who served in that capacity for WTXF and KYW Newsradio. He lives in Chestnut Hill.

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'Princess and the Frog' a funny, fine, follow-your-dreams musical - Chestnut Hill Local