Anastasia (1997)

reviewed by
Mark D. McKean


ANASTASIA (1997) (*** out of 4)

The Disney juggernaut has long held dominion over the feature film animation market in Hollywood. It's reached the point of most Americans equating animation itself with Disney. And try as they might, no other film studio in Hollywood has been able to produce an animated film that could legitimately challenge Disney's monopoly.

Until now.

ANASTASIA is such a contender, the end result of years of effort by former Disney animators Don Bluth and Gary Goldman, and a Disney-sized budget provided by Twentieth-Century Fox. While neither innovative nor groundbreaking, this film demonstrates, beyond any doubt, that Disney's days as sole producer of feature animation in Hollywood are over.

Loosely based in history, ANASTASIA is the tale of the purported surviving daughter of Czar Nicholas II of Russia, but historical accuracy is not an element of this story, nor is it necessary. And while comparisons to the classic film of this story starring Ingrid Bergman are inevitable, they really aren't appropriate, as the theme and focus of this adaptation are quite different from that of the earlier effort. The Bergman film was a mystery, a high drama: was the girl really the heir to the Russian empire, or was she a fraud? This animated version, on the other hand, is presented as a grand romantic adventure, a fairy tale, and a comedy of errors.

Two key twists in the history are all that was needed to create the fairy-tale atmosphere of this story. First, the mystery element was removed; we, the audience, know from the very start that Anya (Meg Ryan) is indeed the real Anastasia. Second, a villain was created, since you simply can't have a fairy tale these days without a villain (Disney used the same alteration in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, another tale which originally did not have a villain). The convenient historical character to become the villain was Rasputin (Christopher Lloyd), the monk and mystic who was once an adviser to Czar Nicholas. In history, Rasputin did fall out of favor with the court, and reportedly did curse the Romanoff family, but he was otherwise not involved in the demise of the royal family. In the film's version, Rasputin sells his soul for the magic needed to make his curse felt.

And that curse is felt quickly. The rabble rioting through the palace manage to capture nearly all of the royal family. Only the Dowager Empress Marie (Angela Landsbury) and Anastasia, Nicholas's youngest daughter, escape, thanks to the help of Dimitri, a servant boy in the palace. Unfortunately, Marie and Anastasia are separated in the escape, and Marie goes on to Paris, wondering what happened to her granddaughter.

Ten years later, Anastasia (now known only as Anya) is living in an orphanage in Russia with no memories of her royal childhood. An impulse to find her past (and the urgings of a stray dog) leads her to St. Petersburg, where she meets Dimitri (John Cusack), who is now auditioning girls to present to the Dowager Empress. It seems that Marie, desperate to find her granddaughter, has offered a reward of ten million rubles to whomever can reunite her with Anastasia. Struck by Anya's resemblance to palace portraits of the young princess, Dimitri convinces Anya to go with him to Paris to meet the Empress. Meanwhile, Rasputin's long-dormant curse has been awakened by Anya's return to St. Petersburg, and the evil monk, languishing in limbo, revives to finish off the Romanoff family once and for all.

There is nothing new about this kind of story; long-lost heirs and forgotten pasts are staples of epic romantic adventure. And there is never any real suspense in this film, as it is obvious from the first that Anya will be revealed at the end to be the real Anastasia, and Rasputin's curse will be defeated. But, just as when traveling to places one has visited before, the enjoyment is not so much in discovering the destination as it is in finding out how one will get there this time.

Technically, the film has much the same flaws as Disney's recent animated features, but more so. Effects, backgrounds, and props animation is excellent, aided by modern computer techniques, but their photo-realism is distracting when the animated characters are placed in the middle. In some scenes, the mismatch between characters and props is so great it's laughable, with props not moving in sync with the characters manipulating them. And the character designs are very inconsistent, with faces changing shape right before our eyes as the camera moves around. The only plus of this inconsistency is that the variations make it clear that all the cels were actually drawn individually, not photocopied or reused as seems to be the fashion at other animation houses in Hollywood.

Just as with most of Disney's animated features, the performances of the supporting actors in ANASTASIA are much more interesting than those of the leads. Ryan and Cusack are passable, though bland, in their roles, but Landsbury and Kelsey Grammer (as Dimitri's partner Vladimir) are more entertaining and authentic. And the songs, while mostly sticking to a fairly authentic vintage Broadway style, do occasionally fall into the modern pop stylings that have plagued recent Disney musicals.

In fact, the real strength of ANASTASIA as a challenger to Disney's dominance is not so much in what it does better than Disney as it is in how well Disney's own strengths and weaknesses have been copied. Had Disney continued its animated features in the same direction where THE LITTLE MERMAID and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST led, ANASTASIA is the sort of film which might have come next.

Despite all its flaws, ANASTASIA is a film which is very difficult to not be enchanted by. Its formulaic characters and plot are the same archetypes which brought Disney into its Second Golden Age, and so it should appeal to the same audience. In the hearts of many American filmgoers, predictable epic romance will never go out of style.

-- 
Review (c) 1997 Mark D. McKean - qpanda@iwaynet.net

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