Coco (2017 film)

Coco is a 2017 American animated fantasy comedy-drama film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. Directed by Lee Unkrich, and written by Adrian Molina and Matthew Aldrich, the film stars the voices of Anthony Gonzalez, Gael García Bernal, Benjamin Bratt, Alanna Ubach, Renée Victor, Ana Ofelia Murguía and Edward James Olmos. It follows a 12-year-old boy in Mexico named Miguel (Gonzalez) who is accidentally transported to the Land of the Dead, where he seeks the help of his deceased musician great-great-grandfather to return him to his family and reverse their ban on music.

The concept for Coco is inspired by the Mexican holiday Day of the Dead. Pixar began developing the animation in 2016. Unkrich, Molina, Anderson and some of the film's crew visited Mexico for research. Composer Michael Giacchino, who had worked on prior Pixar animated features, composed the score. With a cost of $175–225 million, Coco is the first film with a nine-figure budget to feature an all-Latino principal cast.

Coco premiered on October 20, 2017, during the Morelia International Film Festival in Morelia, Mexico. It was theatrically released in Mexico the following week, the weekend before Día de Muertos, and in the United States on November 22, 2017. The film received acclaim for its animation, voice acting, music, visuals, emotional story, and respect for Mexican culture. It grossed over $814 million worldwide, becoming the 15th highest-grossing animated film ever at the time of its release. Coco received two awards at the 90th Academy Awards and numerous other accolades. The film was chosen by the National Board of Review as the Best Animated Film of 2017. A sequel, titled Coco 2, is currently in development.

Plot

In the Mexican town of Santa Cecilia, a young woman named Imelda marries a man who eventually leaves her and their daughter Coco to pursue a music career. When he never returns, Imelda bans music from her family and opens a shoemaking business.

Decades later, Imelda's great-great-grandson Miguel lives in the family home with his parents and relatives, including an elderly and ailing Coco. Despite the family's continued ban on music, Miguel secretly loves it and teaches himself to play guitar by watching videos of his idol, the late musician Ernesto de la Cruz. On the Day of the Dead, Miguel inadvertently bumps the family ofrenda and breaks a frame containing a photo of Imelda and an infant Coco. He discovers a hidden section of the photograph that shows his great-great-grandfather (whose head has been torn from the photo) holding Ernesto's famous guitar. Believing this proves Ernesto is his relative, Miguel excitedly tells his family about his musical aspirations. In response, Miguel's grandmother destroys his guitar, causing him to shun his family.

Miguel breaks into Ernesto's mausoleum and takes his guitar to use in a local talent competition. Once Miguel strums it, he becomes invisible to all living people. However, he can interact with his skeletal dead relatives, who are visiting from the Land of the Dead for the holiday. Taking him back with them, they realize Imelda cannot visit since Miguel removed her photo from the ofrenda. Miguel also discovers that he has been cursed for stealing from the dead: he must receive a family blessing to return to the living world before sunrise or he will remain in the Land of the Dead forever. Imelda offers him a blessing on the condition that he abandons music, but Miguel refuses and seeks Ernesto's blessing instead.

Miguel encounters Héctor, a down-on-his-luck skeleton who once performed with Ernesto. Héctor offers to bring Miguel to Ernesto in exchange for Miguel placing his photo on an ofrenda so he can visit his daughter before she forgets him, which would cause him to fade from existence. Héctor helps Miguel perform in a talent competition to win entry to Ernesto's mansion, but Miguel flees after being discovered by his family.

Miguel sneaks into Ernesto's mansion and is welcomed by a surprised Ernesto, but Héctor appears and accuses Ernesto of stealing his songs. As the two argue, Miguel slowly pieces together the truth: Ernesto and Héctor were once a musical act on the brink of fame until Héctor grew homesick and tried to leave. Unable to write songs himself, Ernesto poisoned Héctor and stole his guitar and songs to pass off as his own. To protect his legacy, Ernesto seizes Héctor's photo and has Miguel and Héctor thrown into a cenote pit. There, Héctor reveals that his daughter is named Coco, thus making him Miguel's actual great-great-grandfather.

After being rescued by his family, Miguel reveals the truth about Héctor's death, and Imelda and Héctor slowly reconcile. The family infiltrates Ernesto's concert to retrieve Héctor's photo. Ernesto's crimes are exposed to the audience, who quickly turn on him, and he is crushed by a falling bell (mirroring his fate in real life), although Héctor's photograph is lost in the chaos. As the sun rises, Imelda and a fading Héctor bless Miguel and return him to the living world.

Back home, Miguel apologizes to his family for running away and plays "Remember Me" on Héctor's guitar, brightening Coco to sing with him. She shares that she kept the torn piece of the photo with Héctor's face, then tells her family stories about her father, preserving his memory and existence in the Land of the Dead. Miguel reconciles with his family and their ban on music is finally lifted.

One year later, Miguel shows his new baby sister the family ofrenda, now displaying photos of Héctor and a recently deceased Coco, while Coco's collected letters from Héctor prove Ernesto's theft of his songs, leading to Ernesto's disgrace and Héctor's rightful recognition. In the Land of the Dead, Héctor joins Imelda, Coco, and their family to visit the living world. Miguel performs a heartfelt song for both his living and dead relatives.

Voice cast

The animal characters Dante and Pepita are alebrijes, spirit guides in this film. Dante is a Xoloitzcuintle with bird-like wings in his alebrije form. Pepita is a cat whose alebrije form gives her the head, torso, and front paws of a jaguar, the horns of a ram, the wings and hindlegs of an eagle, and the tail of an iguana.

Production

Development

Lee Unkrich first pitched an idea for the film in 2010, when Toy Story 3, which he also directed, was released. Initially, the film was to be about an American child, learning about his Mexican heritage, while dealing with the death of his mother. Eventually, the team decided that this was the wrong approach and reformed the film to focus on a Mexican child instead. Of the original version, Unkrich noted that it "reflected the fact that none of us at the time were from Mexico". The fact that the film depicted "a real culture" caused anxiety for Unkrich, who "felt an enormous responsibility on [his] shoulders to do it right".

The Pixar team made several trips to Mexico to help define the characters and story of Coco. Unkrich said, "I'd seen it portrayed in folk art. There was something about the juxtaposition of skeletons with bright, festive colors that captured my imagination. It has led me down a winding path of discovery. And the more I learn about [el] Día de los Muertos, the more it affects me deeply." The team found it difficult working with skeletal creatures, as they lacked any muscular system, and as such had to be animated differently from their human counterparts. Coco also took inspiration from Hayao Miyazaki's anime films Spirited Away (2001) and Howl's Moving Castle (2004) as well as the action film John Wick (2014).

In 2013, Disney requested to trademark the phrase "Día de los Muertos" for merchandising applications. This was met with criticism from the Mexican-American community in the United States. Lalo Alcaraz, a Mexican-American cartoonist, drew a film poster titled Muerto Mouse, depicting a skeletal Godzilla-sized Mickey Mouse with the byline "It's coming to trademark your cultura." More than 21,000 people signed a petition on Change.org stating that the trademark was "cultural appropriation and exploitation at its worst". A week later, Disney canceled the attempt, with the official statement saying that the "trademark filing was intended to protect any title for our film and related activities. It has since been determined that the title of the film will change, and therefore we are withdrawing our trademark filing." In 2015, Pixar hired Alcaraz to consult on the film, joining playwright Octavio Solis and former CEO of the Mexican Heritage Corp. Marcela Davison Aviles, to form a cultural consultant group.

Story

Unkrich found writing the script "the toughest nut to crack". Earlier versions of the film had different universe rules regarding how Miguel (originally called Marco) would get back from the land of the dead; in one case he physically had to run across the bridge. In one version of the story, his family is cursed with singing when trying to speak, which was included as a technique to add music to a story where music is banned.