Brave

Directors: Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman, Steve Purcell
Writers: Brenda Chapman (Story & Screenplay), Mark Andrews (Screenplay), Steve Purcell (Screenplay), Irene Mecchi (Screenplay)
Starring the Voices of: Kelly Macdonald, Billy Connolly, Emma Thompson, Julie Walters
Length: 93 min
Released: 2012

Brave is one of the newest films by Disney-Pixar animations released over the summer. My nine year old sister, Cheyenne, went to see it with my mother and LOVED it, and told me it was definitely something I should see. When I saw the trailer, I could understand why Cheyenne would like it so much; the main character, Merida, reminded me a lot of her. Her crazy hair even looked just like my sisters (except it was a crazy reddish orange color instead of brown). My mom also told me it was worth watching. Finally, about a month ago, I saw it. 

The opening scene begins with a young Scottish princess, Merida, celebrating her birthday. While her mother (the queen) is very prim and proper and wants Merida to be that way as well, her father is a fun-loving, easy-going king who gives her a bow and arrow. Merida starts playing around with it, and wanders into the woods. She eventually returns to the clearing with her family, but a bear had followed her. The king, known for being the best bear hunter in the nation, takes on the beast, and saves the day. He loses his leg in the process, though. 

The movie then fast forwards to about ten years later. The queen has become much more strict with Merida, wanting her to be the perfect, lady-like princess. Merida, however, has become a skilled archer and wants to live her life the way she chooses. She also now has three brothers, who are complete trouble-makers (her mother doesn't care too much how they act, which makes Merida somewhat jealous). Within a few minutes, the king announces that they will be holding a contest with the three other clans with whom they are allied, and the winner of this contest will be Merida's future husband. The princess chooses for the contest to be one of archery. Two of the boys do terribly, and one, probably by chance, hits the bull's eye. Merida, being the defiant young girl that she is, decided she was not going to have this, and took her bow and arrow to shoot the targets herself. She hits every target perfectly, even splitting the one arrow that hit the target down the middle. 


This act of defiance infuriates her mother to the extent of throwing her bow into a fireplace, to which Merida responds by ripping a family tapestry down the middle so that she and her mother are separated. The princess then takes her horse and runs away. She eventually stumbles upon a witch, and asks for a potion to change her mother in order to change her fate. She gets the potion in the form of a cake, and returns home to give it to her mother. The queen eats it and, at first, nothing happens. But after some time, Merida and her mother are in the queen's room, and all of a sudden the queen turns into a bear. They escape from the castle (not being seen by the king who would kill the bear if he saw it) and set out to find the witch to fix this. They stumble across the witch's house, but she is gone. They find out, though, that they have until sunset the in two days time to change the queen back or she will stay a bear forever. Over the course of the next day, the bond between Merida and her mother eventually begins to heal itself. The queen also begins to become more bear-like; she is much less uptight. Merida figures out that she needs to fix the tapestry in order to save her mother, and once she does, the curse is lifted. 

Ultimately, this was not a typical Disney-Pixar love story; it was about the broken relationship between a girl and her mother. It was an incredibly touching film that told us that, no matter how bad things may seem, family will always be there for you, especially your mother. I can definitely relate to this, as I'm sure just about anyone else can. We've all had our fights and mishaps with our moms, but at the end of the day, my mom is the person I can always go to when I need someone to be there for me.