Oscar Winner Debate: Family Feud Style

Nope, this isn’t going to be about my earlier review of Silver Linings Playbook and Jennifer Lawrence’s Best Actress win (pretty sure she can do no wrong after her comedic and another award worthy turn in the press room interviews following the win) or Christoph Waltz’s supporting actor win for Django Unchained (insert my own personal fist pump here), this debate flared up about the winner for Best Animated Feature; Brave.
In one corner we’ve got my sister, pouting a bit that Rise of the Guardians wasn’t nominated and then there’s me, heart happy over the win. I simply adored this film. Princess Merida is the hero I want my younger sisters looking up to. She’s not your typical Disney princess in distress, waiting to be saved by her knight in shining armor. She’s fighting against her birth rank and potential arranged marriage to whoever turned out to be the champion of the duels set up for her hand and therein the realm. Now, admittedly I wasn’t able to fully engage in this debate because I had not, and still have yet to see Rise of the Guardians, (I’ll try to make it to Tropicana Theatre before they pull it) but the kerfuffle started because we differed on the worthiness of Brave’s win.
Now, I’m no expert at critiquing animation but from that novice perspective, there wasn’t a moment I thought, geez, this looks cheesy, unpolished, or not up to snuff enough to be a major world release. However, that wasn’t my dear sweet sister’s main critique. Unoriginal, not enough character arc or development for the lead, the mother’s role was more pertinent to the story and was glossed over …. just a few of the criticisms that were thrown out at the film that I wasn’t able to agree with on any level. This mother and daughter team, who don’t realize how quite alike they are, until they are faced with saving each other from personal battles they never knew they shared, was a film that makes you want to yell, “you go girl!” In fact, I secretly shouted just that when my sister and I had our head to head over this one. Maybe she didn’t realize just how much Merida she has in her after all.