Film Review: The Little Mermaid & The Eight Mountains

Love and Friendship

The Little Mermaid & The Eight Mountains

By Marc Glassman

The Little Mermaid

Rob Marshall, director

David Magee, script based on the 1989 film by Ron Clements and John Musker and the original story by Hans Christian Andersen

Songs by Alan Menken (music) w/lyrics by Howard Ashman and Lin-Manuel Miranda

Starring: Halle Bailey (Ariel), Jonah Hauer-King (Prince Eric), Daveed Diggs (Sebastian the crab), Awkwafina (Scuttle the gannet), Jacob Tremblay (Flounder the fish), Javier Bardem (King Triton), Melissa McCarthy (Ursula the sea witch), Norma Dumezweni (Queen Selina)

The film that launched Disney’s huge comeback as the most successful animation producer in the world, The Little Mermaid has an iconic status, which makes the live-action remake one that audiences and critics have been eagerly anticipating for years. Let’s face it: most of Disney’s recent remakes, particularly The Lion King and Pinocchio, haven’t measured up to the brilliant animation originals. So could Disney’s artists match the charm, style and beautiful music of their 1989 classic? 

The answer is a highly qualified yes. It may be impossible for live-action films even with the best special effects to match the exuberance that is created by splendid animation. It hasn’t happened yet, but The Little Mermaid team has created a strange and fantastic world “under the sea,” which is quite beautiful if a trifle dark. The CGI for the sea creatures is effective from a distance but the three major characters, Sebastian the crab (voiced by Daveed Diggs), Scuttle the gannet (Awkwafina) and Flunder (Jacob Tremblay) are decidedly odd, particularly the beady-eyed crab. Happily, Ariel, the beautiful Disney sea princess, is played by Halle Bailey, who is lovely with special f/x fins and latterly, with legs. She’s totally persuasive in the water and on land.

The Disney creatives, led by director Rob Marshall (Chicago, Into the Woods, Mary Poppins Returns), composer Alan Menken (Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Pocahontas), lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda (In the Heights, Hamilton, Encanto), and scriptwriter David Magee (Finding Neverland, Life of Pi, Lady Chatterley’s Lover) have done a fine job of adapting the earlier Little Mermaid. Mindful of the changing sensibilities towards women, Ariel’s decision to abandon her fins for legs and become a person is made to be a lifestyle choice, not something she is doing solely out of love. And Lin-Manuel Miranda’s revised lyrics to Howard Ashman’s “Kiss the Girl” is rendered as a harmless exploration, not a passionate assault by a boy on a girl. The creation of Queen Selina, the Black ruler of a Caribbean island and Prince Eric’s stepmother is a nice addition to the plot, filling in the story in a politically sensitive way. Still, it must be mentioned that this version of The Little Mermaid is 135 minutes, quite a bit longer than the 83-minute original. 

The cast of this Little Mermaid is strong, as to be expected from Disney. Halle Bailey is excellent as Ariel, which is key to the success of the film. She’s persuasive as the impulsive mermaid, used to getting her own way, and, of course, her voice is extraordinary. Miranda and Menken have given her a new song, “For the First Time,” a power ballad which she aces, and Bailey is more than up for the extraordinary “Part of Your World.” Though they look somewhat less appealing than in the animation original, Ariel’s friends Sebastian, Flounder and Scuttle are funny, and Miranda has even worked up a new rap song “The Scuttlebutt” for Awkwafina, which is funny and contemporary. Javier Bardem is fine as King Triton as is the rest of the cast. If there’s any disappointment, it’s in Melissa McCarthy’s Ursula, the Sea Witch. As a classic Disney villain, she has the opportunity to absolutely nail her role but while she’s quite good, this is not a stellar performance. She’s funny and scary but not as memorable as she might have been. 

Will The Little Mermaid be a big hit? Absolutely. And it deserves to be. Not the best Disney, but certainly a crowd pleaser with a host of memorable songs and a still very likeable storyline.  

The Eight Mountains

Felix von Groeningen & Charlotte Vandermeersch, co-dir. & co-script

Based on the book by Paolo Cognetti

Starring: Luca Marinelli (Pietro), Alessandro Borghi (Bruno), Filippo Timi (Giovanni), Elena 

Lietti (Francesca), Elisabetta Mazzullo (Lara), Surakshya Panta (Asmi)

The co-winner of the prestigious Jury Prize at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, Felix von Groeningen & Charlotte Vandermeersch’s The Eight Mountains is an old-fashioned tale of a life-long friendship between two men set mainly in the Italian Alps. Shot for the most part in those glorious mountains in contemporary northern Italy, the film is gorgeous to watch but the story it tells struggles to be as epic as its surroundings. 

While the relationship between Pietro, the sophisticated boy from Turin, and Bruno, the local mountain lad, starts off as charming when they’re 11-year-olds and gradually acquires depth as time passes, nothing unique or especially meaningful takes place between them. The film is paced deliberately, allowing for all the characters—Bruno, Pietro, his parents Giovanni and Francesca and the “mountain woman” Lara—to stretch and express themselves as thoroughly as possible. But what they say, at best, amounts to a denunciation of capitalism while adopting a reverential tone when expressing feelings about a rural life, which seems impossible to sustain in modern times. If Paolo Cognetti, the author of the award-winning novel which inspired this film, had anything to tell us, it seems to be a romantic longing for a time when a love for mountains and great friendships was possible to achieve.

We see three versions of Pietro and Bruno, as 11-year-olds, late adolescents and, finally, as adults, where the casting is perfect. Luca Marinelli, who was wonderful as the title character in Pietro Marcello’s award-winning Martin Eden a couple of years ago, is excellent at playing affable intellectuals. He’s ably matched by Alessandro Borghi as the athletic brooding Bruno—and, yes, the two play off each other very well. The novel or the script might have developed conflict between the two based on Bruno’s surrogate love and respect for Pietro’s father, Giovanni, which the biological son never felt for his own kin. In fact, neither Bruno nor Pietro could stand to be with their fathers. But the film (and the novel) takes the high road, endorsing that at least Giovanni had Bruno as a stand-by son while no one, not even Pietro’s mother Francesca, expresses any remorse over the impossible anger that the father and son had towards each other.  

In the most engrossing part of the film, Bruno persuades Pietro to build a house that Giovanni wanted to construct on a hilly property near a green lake in the mountains. Pietro’s resistance is overcome by Bruno’s implacable belief that this is the right thing for both of them and the scenes of them building the house while developing a camaraderie is lovely to witness. The bonding between the two is delightful as is the understated humour in watching a city boy gradually succumbing to the delights of the mountainous environment that quickly becomes home. 

The Eight Mountains takes a surprising turn when Pietro journeys away from the Alps and ends up in the Himalayas. He finds a new life in Nepal; it’s a place where he can write, and eventually meet Asmi, the woman he grows to love. Meanwhile in Italy, Bruno becomes involved with Lara, a friend of Pietro’s, and the two have a child. 

I know—it all seems to be too good. That tragic shoe (maybe both of them) has to drop. But the two learn about life and love and, well, mountains, before having to confront fate.

The Eight Mountains is a parable about life and fate and love. It tries its best. Let’s acknowledge the effort, if not the result.