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Movie Review: 'The Little Mermaid'

Young girls will fall in love all over again with 'The Little Mermaid.'

By Sean PatrickPublished 10 months ago 6 min read
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The Little Mermaid (2023)

Directed by Rob Marshall

Written by David Magee

Starring Halle Bailey, Jonah Hauer King, Javier Bardem, Melissa McCarthy, Daveed Diggs

Release Date May 26th, 2023

Published May 26th, 2023

I can't sit here and tell you I was a big of The Little Mermaid. I am not a fan of director Rob Marshall's bombastic, somewhat chaotic, and often wonky vision of this Disney classic. I was all set to write a mostly negative review of The Little Mermaid. Then, when the movie ended, I stood outside of the theater and watched the crowd making their way out of the theater and I was struck by the reaction of others. Specifically, I saw a uniformly joyous response from young girls leaving the theater. More than one said they wanted to be Ariel for Halloween. They were singing the songs, the choruses anyway.

It was the best possible review anyone could give to The Little Mermaid. The young girls from 4 years old to 12 years were in universal praise of The Little Mermaid. And listening to that broke through my cynicism. Their joy reframed my context of The Little Mermaid. This movie is not to my taste at all, but it's not meant to be. If a movie can inspire this much joy in the audience intended to enjoy it, who am I as a middle aged dude to say that's bad.

Halle Bailey stars in The Little Mermaid as Ariel, the youngest daughter of King Triton (Javier Bardem). Ariel is an endlessly curious young woman, her eyes filled with wonder, she explores the seas searching for human treasures that fall into the ocean. With her pal Flounder (Jacob Tremblay), she also finds trouble. While searching for treasure in one of the many sunken ships at the bottom of the ocean, she and Flounder narrowly and daringly escape a very hungry and determined shark. For Ariel, this is just another day of adventure.

However, this is not just another day in her kingdom. This is the day that her sisters from around the world are visiting to meet with the King and when Ariel fails to show up on time, the rift between Father and Daughter is further exposed. King Triton wants his youngest daughter to be more careful. He especially wants Ariel to shake off her fascination with humans. According to Triton, it was human who murdered his wife, Ariel's mother, and his grief has curdled into anger and suspicion of all humans.

This does not curb Ariel's curiosity however, and when she spots a ship caught in a storm and dashed on some rocks, she leaps in to help the ship's captain, Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer King). Saving his life, Ariel doesn't fully reveal herself to him but her voice is burned into his memory. He vows to search for the mysterious young woman who saved his life. Meanwhile, the scheming Ursula (Melissa McCarthy), has witnessed all of this and sees Ariel's desire to be a human as her chance to upend her brother, King Triton, as the ruler of the seas.

You probably know what comes next. Ursula tricks Ariel into trading her voice for the chance to be human. Ariel and Prince Eric fall in love, songs are sung, and, as you can imagine, we build towards a dramatic and perilous Happily Ever After. The outcome of the movie is never in doubt and if you don't go into this movie knowing and accepting that fact, you should not be watching this movie. You can't knock this movie for being predictable, you knew going in what you were getting in The Little Mermaid.

With that fully established, what The Little Mermaid needed to do was play around in the margins of this very familiar story. It needed to find ways to distract you from the obvious outcome and, for the most part, the film is successful with that. Daveed Diggs especially, as the voice of Sebastian the Crab, is terrific at distracting us with a cute and clever song. Diggs gets the two best songs in the movie and, not surprising, the veteran of the original cast of Hamilton, delivers in a big way. Under the Sea and Kiss the Girl are genuine showstoppers and much of that can be attributed to Diggs' deft and charming vocal performance.

As for our star, Halle Bailey acquits herself well in an incredibly difficult role. She doesn't yet have the presence and confidence of a leading lady, this is her first try and in an impossible role she does the best she can with it. Her singing voice is lovely but the rest of the performance shows how much she will need to grow before she becomes a full on movie star. She has lovely, expressive eyes and she plays the hardest part of the film, the time as a human when she has no voice, extraordinarily well. It's certainly not a bad performance at all. It's just a very high degree of difficulty for someone whose never been the lead in a movie before and Bailey is clearly still finding herself as an actress.

I have plenty of issues with The Little Mermaid, especially with the bombastic, chaotic and wonky direction of Rob Marshall, but it now feels less important after the experience I had after the movie. Watching the joy of little girls dancing their way out of The Little Mermaid made me rethink all of my criticisms. I still feel those criticisms are valid, but I cannot be mad at a movie that can inspire as much joy as this movie did. Little girls across the country are being delighted by the music and the beauty of Halle Bailey and her underwater universe, and it feels unkind and far too cynical to dismiss that.

Thus, I do recommend The Little Mermaid. If you have a young daughter at home, take her to see this. The magic simply works for them. If this movie is what sparks a lifelong love of the movies, then The Little Mermaid is a worthy effort. Middle aged film critics may be driven to dunk on this movie but that is far more about our aesthetic taste than anything else. Sometimes, a critic needs to step back and recognize that art comes in different shapes and sizes and the shape and size of this work of art is specifically scaled to an audience of people aged 4 to 12 who wish they could live under the sea with Flounder and Sebastian. There's nothing wrong with that.

Find my archive of more than 20 years and nearly 2000 movie reviews at SeanattheMovies.blogspot.com. Find my modern review archive on my Vocal Profile, linked here. Follow me on Twitter at PodcastSean. Follow the archive blog on Twitter at SeanattheMovies. Listen to me talk about movies on the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast. If you have enjoyed what you have read, consider subscribing to my writing on Vocal. If you'd like to support my writing, you can do so by making a monthly pledge or by leaving a one-time tip.

New thing I am doing, I'm taking requests. If there is a movie you'd like me to write about, you can pay me a small fee via my Ko-fi account. I can't promise a positive review but I will happily write about the movie of your choice and make it as entertaining as possible.

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About the Creator

Sean Patrick

Hello, my name is Sean Patrick He/Him, and I am a film critic and podcast host for the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast I am a voting member of the Critics Choice Association, the group behind the annual Critics Choice Awards.

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