Movie Review: Coco
I have a soft spot in my heart for the Disney Pixar movies. They usually hit the mark with a little bit of laughter and tears and a nice message. Coco was no exception. It was a friend of mine who referred me to this movie last year.
Being sentimental and missing my friend, who hasn't spoken with me in quite some time, I watched this movie again today. I'll forever associate it with her. It tells the story of a little boy named Miguel who wants to make music. His family forbids music in the house.
It turns out his great great grandfather left his wife and little girl to pursue a music career. The family felt he abandoned them for music, so they disowned him and decided music need not be a part of their lives. They were very happy to be shoemakers.
Miguel feels he was born to do something else in life. He feels the calling of music, and he believes he has a connection with a well-known musician named Ernesto de la Cruz. The boy has been practicing music and knows how to play the guitar.
His family celebrates Day of the Dead, and they want to be together on that day. Miguel wants to enter a talent contest and play music. When the family catches wind of this, they break his guitar and forbid him to go. Defiantly, he goes anyway, but he can't enter the contest without a guitar.
He tries to borrow a guitar from anybody, but nobody will lend him one. This is when he decides to break into the crypt of de la Cruz and steal his guitar, just for the contest. Suddenly, Miguel enters the world of the dead as the day approaches.
Thus begins his adventure. One of his deceased relatives sends him back home with the understanding that he is to give up music, but defiantly he tries to steal the guitar again and is sent back to the realm of the dead. He begins an adventure to meet de la Cruz, who he believes is his great great grandfather.
A charming musician named Hector offers to get the boy to de la Cruz if he'll take a picture home with him so that he can be remembered and not fade into nothingness. Along the way, Miguel and Hector bond. This is where he learns the secret of Hector.
In these reviews, I have the choice of giving away secrets or not. This movie has been around for a while, so if you haven't seen it, you might want to stop reading. I am going to talk a little bit about what happens here.
Miguel ends up meeting de la Cruz, but he learns his secret. De la Cruz isn't his great great grandfather, Hector is. He learns the dirty secret of de la Cruz, and at that point Miguel might end up stuck in the realm of the dead.
Will he be able to get out? What will become of Hector, who only has one living relative? That relative is seemingly forgetting him as he shows signs of fading away into nothingness.
At the heart of this movie is the message of the importance of family. I never really understood what Day of The Dead was. It's a Mexican day, called Dios de Los Muertos. It seemed like a dark kind of day to celebrate, so I never bothered to learn about it until this movie.
It's really a day for Mexican families to remember those who have passed on. They carry them forever in their hearts, and it's believed that as long as they do that, those relatives will never truly fade away.
I would have to rank Coco as one of the best Pixar movies I've ever seen. I think I was crying a little bit more because I was also thinking of my friend, but that just made me love the movie even more.
Coco is a movie to see if you've never seen it before, but it's also worthy of a rewatch if it's been a while. I recommend it.
