Brave - not just for teenage girls & their mums!

The 'Pixar film' of 2012 was Brave.  I never went to the cinema to see it as it didn't really generate the excitement in me that Toy Story 3 or Up did in recent years.  Perhaps it was something to do with the reviews of the film.  They told me that Brave was for teenage girls who can't get on with their mothers, anyone who has ever been a teenage girl and is ashamed by just how much of a brat they were to their mother, and mothers of teenage girls struggling to work out what they're supposed to do.  I don't fit into any of those categories.

Brave is set in a Scottish medieval fantasy land, a land of kings, queens, princes & princesses; a land where there are will-o-wisps and witches and spells that can turn people into bears.  The story is of Merida (voiced by the always-excellent Kelly MacDonald), a brash tomboy of a princess with tumbling red hair, who loves nothing more than charging around on her horse shooting arrows.  Merida is constantly at odds with her mother, who spends most of her time trying to get Merida to act like a princess and preparing her for the day when she will be given away to a prince.  All the while Merida's father spends most of his time eating, drinking and telling tales about how he lost his leg to a bear.  When the time comes for Merida to marry a prince, she doesn't want to and will do anything to stop her mother getting her own way.

Rarely have a seen a film that so obviously pulls at the viewer's heartstrings than Brave.  You've got the strings fading in and out like nobody's business and in the final 20 minutes of the film it's one teary scene after the next as Merida is forced to be responsible and comes to realise that her mother actually loves her, and that she loves her mother back.  Not only that, but she would do anything to protect her.  I can imagine the teenage girls and their mothers welling up in the aisles.  I would be lying if I said I was emotionally unmoved by the story, it's just so well-constructed.

Like all Pixar films, Brave is visually stunning with astonishingly lifelike faces on the characters and sweeping vistas.  It's not only the big things, it's the attention to detail too.  Small things like individual strands of grass swaying in the wind or Merida's messy hair falling around with a life of its own, these all took someone time to animate.  The effect is outstanding.

Brave is hardly Toy Story or Up, but that's hardly a criticism.  One real criticism might come from the people of Scotland.  Are Scottish people tired of the stereotypes yet?  There are scenes of highland games and people fighting-as-a-national-pastime and one character who's a totally incomprehensible Glaswegian.  I've only been to Scotland once, and that was Edinburgh - so maybe that's what the rest of Scotland's really like?  Anyone from Scotland care to comment?  Well there are plenty of Scots here at work so maybe I should ask one of them.  On the upside, at least they got some real Scottish people to do the voices rather than Mike Myers hamming it up a la Shrek.

Crucially though this is yet more proof that me and my housemate Rich have utterly opposing view on films.  There's a barely a film that passes by upon which we have convergent views.  When he saw I had Brave on DVD he gave me the 'oh dear' eyes and warned me it wasn't any good.  I thought perhaps this would finally be the one we agree one; after all this is a film that's meant to be for teenage girls and mothers of teenage girls.  I guess I've got more empathy for that demographic than Rich does then, because I thought Brave was a fine film.