‘Wish’: Review

Dirs: Chris Buck, Fawn Veerasunthorn. US. 2023. 95mins

Advocating for the power of dreams — and, even more forcefully, the power of Disney’s global brand — Wish is a strained animated musical which overtly references the company’s most beloved films, a strategy that mostly exposes how singular the studio’s productions used to be. The picture boasts a few memorable songs, but they cannot compensate for a convoluted story about a young woman battling a seemingly benevolent king who secretly enjoys controlling his subjects by holding onto what they deem most precious, their one and only wish.

Disney has rarely and so shamelessly plundered its own catalogue 

Disney has rarely and so shamelessly plundered its own catalogue — not just in terms of homages to its greatest hits but also in the familiar elements thrown together for this wan fable. With Wish opening in the States on November 22, and arriving in the UK two days later, the studio is clearly hoping to rebound from the commercial failure of last year’s Thanksgiving offering Strange World, which brought in only $74 million worldwide. This new picture, co-directed by Chris Buck – one of the directors on the Frozen films – should perform better, bolstered by a voice cast that includes Ariana DeBose and Chris Pine. 

The kingdom of Rosas is ruled by Magnifico (Pine), who trained himself to become a sorcerer in order to protect people’s most cherished wishes, storing them in his castle and deciding which ones shall be granted. But when the good-hearted teenager Asha (DeBose) interviews to be Magnifico’s apprentice, she discovers that he only grants wishes that fit with his agenda to hold onto the throne. Her life now in danger after learning the truth, Asha wishes on a star, which comes to life and helps her fight back against Magnifico.

Buck and co-director Fawn Veerasunthorn (making her feature debut) knowingly riff on fairytale tropes, starting with an opening scene in which the narrative is set up through pages in a child’s picture book. Cleverly, Wish’s look is meant to imitate that simple, straightforward aesthetic, while also harking back to older Disney films which incorporated a now-classic animation style. 

But the loving callbacks start to feel tedious, even cynical, as Wish lazily riffs on Bambi, Peter Pan, Cinderella and Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs. Sometimes, the reference is just to an iconic song lyric, but there is a witlessness to the cinematic shout-outs — especially considering that the picture is built around the concept of wishing on a star, a resonant theme in several Disney pictures; most notably Pinocchio. 

Unfortunately, the arrival of the magical star only further underlines Wish’s dearth of fresh ideas. Presented as an overly adorable little ball of energy, the star gives Asha’s animal friends the power to speak, prompting the sort of cutesy antics that would be more buoyant if Jennifer Lee and Allison Moore’s screenplay had sharper one-liners or compelling characters. But in the filmmakers’ attempt to make Wish reminiscent of bygone Disney chestnuts (and fairy tales in general), a blandness hovers over the proceedings — a nagging sense that everything we are seeing is a pastiche, a dim echo of what came before. 

Equally disappointing is that, despite trying to replicate the wonder of fairy tales, Wish forgets that their power often derived from their visceral, elemental stories. By comparison, the tortured explanation of how wishes work in Rosas is not clear, with the filmmakers later throwing in arbitrary twists that only make the rules murkier. 

Songwriters Julia Michaels and Benjamin Rice deliver a few choice numbers, including ‘Welcome To Rosas’, which allows West Side Story Oscar-winner DeBose to show off her superb voice. (Another tune, the ensemble piece ‘Knowing What I Know Now’ is percussive and rousing.) But more often, the musical sequences serve predictable purposes — for instance, the vain villain Magnifico needs to have his obligatory song about how magnificent he thinks he is, called ’This Is The Thanks I Get?!’ Set pieces designed to mimic indelible moments from, say, Beauty And The Beast, only add to the disillusioning deja vu. 

DeBose brings enthusiasm to her role, but Asha is otherwise a dull copy of other high-spirited Disney non-princesses. And Pine underwhelms, largely because Magnifico lacks any truly wicked characteristics — even the potentially interesting notion that he believes he knows better than his subjects about what to do with their wishes is underdeveloped. Wish seeks to celebrate how our deepest desires are integral to who we are, a sign of optimism that our future will be brighter;  ironic for a film so entrenched in the past, so desperate to persuade audiences that Disney has been the great dream factory for the last 100 years. Maybe it once was, but Wish will leave viewers wanting.