The Little Mermaid - Review

Honestly, I didn't like it much. Mind you, I wasn't all that sold on the animated version, either, and this movie was (to its credit?) fairly faithful to it. I was hoping it wouldn't be. Is that weird?

I only went to see it because I got a free ticket. I would not pay to watch this. Even still, that's 135 minutes of my life I won't get back.

Let's start with the things I liked so I don't seem like a completely miserable a-hole.

Thing I liked #1: The best part of this movie is the casting for Ariel. I have no idea why people are weird about a black mermaid. They could be golden or green or silver or blue. Literally any colour is acceptable, surely?

Halle Bailey did a decent job with the material she was given. I'd have like her hair to be redder, but oh well. If anything, I think she deserved a better part in a better film. The other people of colour felt shoe-horned in as an afterthought and an exercise in box-ticking. I'm no expert in diversity and representation, but this film doesn't feel like it's hitting the mark.

Thing I liked #2: Some of the scenes are really beautiful. Most are corny and terrible, but some are beautiful.

Don't deny what you are

This film is already on the back foot with me, because I loathe the premise of it.

You're a mermaid, kid! Stop denying what you are!

- Me, while watching it

Don't give up everything you are for some guy, least of all some guy you don't even know.

In the original tale (the original original, the one the animated version is based on), walking is immensely painful for her. Like walking on knives. That I like. Give me some of that! If they'd kept that bit in, I would have enjoyed this film a lot more. If it had been written as a tragedy, rather than a romance. To make real and physical the pain of denying your nature for a fantasy. The price of trying to magick away the bits of yourself that you consider inconvenient. Trimming your Self for some guy you like the look of. Make it hurt! It should! Because it does! Don't glamorise it.

And - she's a kid! A child! She is making terrible decisions, and not listening to her parent - who is actually right about pretty much everything.

Hardly needs saying, but the underpinning messages in this film are not ones I think little girls need to be absorbing. Most especially about changing and denying your fundamental Self for some boy. I am aware that the same can be said of many Disney movies, but in my opinion, this is one of the worst.

There's a cool piece of art I saw a while back that sums up how I feel about this story:

Voiceless

In 2016 researchers noted a problem with The Little Mermaid. For the first time in a Disney movie, the male characters speak significantly more than female ones. But of course, you might say - this is a story where our heroine sacrifices her voice. In fact, the plot centres around it. (Sorry, spoiler.) Sure, Jan, so why do the women in the next five Disney movies speak even less, with men speaking 3x more than women?

Let's not forget, women are perceived to dominate conversation if they speak as little as one third of the time.

So you can see... I already had beef with this before I started watching.

Of course, all this is before someone got their money-grabbing live-adaption snip-snapping claws into it. At that point, it just gets worse.

Sebastian is terrible. Flounder isn't much better.

The tails are not the worst mermaid tails I've ever seen, but they still look bolted on and unnatural. Of course they do - they are! There is no way to make them look anything but! That's one reason this film was a piss-poor candidate for live adaption.

I hoped - a slim hope - that the adaption would have been taken as an opportunity to address some of the problems in the original film. Make Ariel less - sorry - wet. Make her ballsy. Not reckless and stupid (that fucking cart scene), but brave and smart and resourceful. Give her a character arc where she comes to accept and prioritise herself. Make Eric more interesting. Have the parent do a damn sight less back-pedalling at the end. He was right - human beings are terrible. We are poisoning the sea.

Her choice to swap a tail for legs, and doom herself to live on land forever was made in the heat of adolescent neurological re-structuring. It was probably unwise and is likely to be regretted later.

Her father was almost as wet as she was, and that song Eric sings (extremely earnestly) about Unchartered Waters had me cringing right off my seat and into the aisles.

I don't recommend. Sorry. A cynical slice of me almost thinks they only made this film to stop someone pulling a "Blood and Honey" with the story or characters. I dunno, that might have been preferable to this.

Wasn't quite a washout, but I won't be watching it again.