When you watch your typical Disney movie, you usually don't think about real-life
Columbian wars, impostor syndrome, or deep, intergenerational trauma. But Encanto isn't
your typical Disney movie. There's a lot more to the film's ending than you might think…
When each Madrigal child receives their gift, the house creates a room just for them, so even though
Bruno left the family, his room is still there. Earlier in the film, after seeing cracks form
in the house that then patched themselves, Mirabel entered Bruno's room in an effort to find answers.
While Mirabel finds glowing shards of etched glass showing a vision of her and the family's crumbling
home in his room, she doesn't find Bruno, and therefore has no idea how to interpret the image.
Later, while walking along a corridor of the house, Mirabel notices a picture on the wall
is crooked, and when she looks behind it, she finds a hole. She enters and finds none
other than Bruno. Instead of leaving the family as the Madrigals assumed,
Bruno has spent years living within the walls of the house, and between the isolation and the
challenges that came with his ability to see the future, he comes across as a little odd.
"Knock, knock, knock, knock. Knock on wood."
Bruno explains he disappeared after he saw the unnerving vision of Mirabel
and the crumbling house, adding that the vision
kept changing and he couldn't figure out what was really going to happen.
Given the unfinished nature of Bruno's vision, Mirabel asks him to look into her future again.
Needing more space, Antonio, who recently received his gift of talking to animals,
offers his new giant animal-filled room for their purposes. Shortly afterward, we see Bruno and
Mirabel sitting together in a clearing, and Bruno is using his power for the first time in years.
Bruno takes Mirabel's hands so she can see what he sees, and soon he's brought her to
the vision of her future depicted in the image she found. However, he pushes past that point to
a vision of Mirabel hugging her older sister Isabela, which seems to heal the family's
problems. Mirabel finds the vision perplexing, though — since she and Isabela don't get along.
While Mirabel isn't thrilled with the idea, she's willing to do what it takes to help her family.
So she seeks out Isabela with the intention of hugging her as Bruno's vision dictates.
"So, we should just hug. Let's hug it out, eh?"
Earlier, Mirabel ruined a dinner at which local hunk Mariano was supposed to propose
to Isabela. So when Mirabel tries to get that hug, Isabela responds by yelling at Mirabel
for destroying her moment. But then, Isabela concedes she was only willing to marry Mariano
because Abuela Alma approved of the match. She admits she's spent her whole life being
as perfect as possible for the good of the family, suppressing whole parts of herself in the process.
As Isabela yells, she sprouts flowers, until her anger reaches its apex and she creates a cactus.
She's delighted by her prickly and imperfect creation, and it makes her wonder what else
she can do with her powers if she doesn't have to be perfect. She and Mirabela sing
"What Else Can I Do" as Isabela further celebrates the joys of embracing her true self.
As Isabela's song ends and she and Mirabel arrive in the courtyard of the Madrigals' house,
Abuela Alma is there to greet them. Isabela has spent the entirety of her song exploring the
limits of her powers, which means she created plants that aren't beautiful, but are a fuller
expression of who she really is. This has caused her to make a mess of her dress and hair, turning
them from put-together perfection to a colorful hodge-podge, and Abuela is furious to see it.
Yet Mirabel ends up bearing the brunt of Abuela's ire when she once again tries to express her
concerns about the magic in the house flickering out. The Madrigals' gifts and their magical
house is powered by a candle that Abuela prayed to during her flight from her original home 50 years
ago. In the time since, the candle has never gone out, and the magical miracle has become the source
of the Madrigals' identity in the community. So instead of taking her concerns seriously, Abuela
is angered by Mirabel's repeated suggestions that the candle could go out and the magic could die.
Abuela and Mirabel argue fiercely, and as they do, more cracks start to appear in the
foundation of the house, to the astonishment and horror of everyone in the family.
As a crack splits the ground between granddaughter and grandmother,
Mirabel springs into action. The house starts to crumble as Mirabel climbs to the open
window where the Madrigal family's magical candle sits. The rest of the family saves
one another from falling debris and runs from the house just as Mirabel reaches the candle,
only to find that for the first time it has melted to a tiny husk.
When the dust clears and the house is nothing more than a pile of rubble,
Mirabel is nowhere to be found. The family, especially Mirabel's mother and father, don't
know where she went and spread out into the nearby mountains and forest in the hopes of finding her.
Ultimately, it's Abuela Alma who discovers Mirabel sitting by the side of a river that
she hasn't gone near since she arrived in their current home half a century ago.
Now that the worst has come to pass, Abuela's anger has dissipated,
but Mirabel is still hurt and defeated. Abuela reveals that the river Mirabel is sitting
beside is where Mirabel's grandfather, Abuela's husband Pedro, died while trying to defend her
and their children from the people that forced them to leave their original home.
After the collapse of their house, Abuela has come to realize she's been holding on
too tight to the family's miracle. She was so traumatized by the loss of her husband
that the idea of anything else bad happening, especially the loss of another family member,
has caused her to see the family's gifts as a lifeline. It's why she hasn't been able to
appreciate everything Mirabel has to offer and she sees her children and other grandchildren through
the lens of their gifts. But Abuela is finally seeing clearly, and she and Mirabel reconcile.
As they do so, Bruno rides up on a horse. He's worried that Abuela is still angry with Mirabel
and tries to take the blame for what happened to the house. But Abuela is
no longer concerned with assigning blame and simply embraces her long-lost son.
Abuela, Bruno, and Maribel make their way back to the site of their former house.
As the only Madrigal who isn't magical, Mirabel tells them they can rebuild,
and as the song "All of You" begins, Mirabel reassures the group that they're more than
their gifts. They can all contribute to the construction of their new house without any magic.
As the family sings and Bruno apologizes and makes amends with his siblings,
everyone in the town approaches. The people who had always relied on the Madrigals for leadership,
assistance, and protection have come to offer their help to rebuild the family's home.
The family and their neighbors work as a team, and as they build the house together with Maribel
in the lead, the Madrigals each learn to embrace who they are beyond their gifts.
With the house rebuilt and the Madrigals prepare to celebrate their triumph over tragedy,
they hand Mirabel a specially designed doorknob.
"We made this one for you."
As the family encourages her, she puts it in its place in the front door and lets everyone
into their newly constructed home. With the foundation of the Madrigal home restored,
the candle reignites and the family members once again have each of their gifts.
So…what does all that really mean?
"Encanto" is never specific about the event that forced Abuela Alma and her
young family from their home 50 years before the start of the movie. However,
there are plenty of clues that suggest the movie is referencing a real historical conflict:
the Thousand Days War, a civil war fought in Colombia between 1899 and 1902. The war pitted
conservatives against liberals, who were outraged after an 1898 presidential election they expected
was fraudulent. After the liberals were defeated in the first phase of the war, they resorted to
guerrilla tactics in rural areas for the next two and half years before finally surrendering.
It's during this phase of the war that Abuela's family was displaced
and Mirabel's grandfather was killed. "Encanto" never specifies whether Abuela
Alma supported the liberal or conservative side. Given the chaotic nature of the war,
it may have simply been bad luck that led to her village being caught up in the fighting.
Still, the long-ago experience of being forced to flee her home and seeing her husband killed
in front of her led Abuela to cling to the safety that her new home and her family's gifts provide.
When war came to their village, Abuela Alma had no choice but to leave a place that,
based on the movie's depiction of it, had previously been a happy home for her and
her husband. That experience alone would be traumatic, but the fact that it also led to
Pedro's death meant the deep pain Abuela experienced was even more overwhelming.
Throughout the film, Abuela talks up the miracle that protected their family on that fateful day
and how it continues to benefit their community. Still, underneath her positive exterior lies
a well of trauma that's impacted every member of the Madrigal clan,
leading to a family that's suffering from all the signs and symptoms of intergenerational trauma.
Even though Mirabel and the rest of Abuela's grandchildren didn't
experience the trauma that led the family to their current home,
Abuela's expectations and attitudes have had an outsized impact on them. It's constraining
the way they behave and who they believe they can be. The Madrigals each choose to cope differently.
Mirabel's flower-powered sister Isabela tries to live up to the family's every expectation,
to the detriment of her own wants and needs. Strong sister Luisa is riddled with anxiety
because she believes if she's not helping the community, she's worthless. Mirabel spends
most of her time denying the fact that her lack of a gift has left her scarred and uncertain.
The trauma that is an inextricable part of the Madrigals' origin story
has also led some of the members of the family to suffer from imposter syndrome. While it's possible
others in the Madrigal clan have this issue, the movie illustrates it through the characters of
Isabela and Luisa. Each believes they may not be as perfect or strong as the rest of their family
and the people in the community believe they are. This has caused them both to overachieve,
which makes it appear as though they're both happy and successful in their roles
in the town. However, the songs both characters sing in the movie indicate otherwise.
In her song "Surface/Pressure," Luisa expresses her concerns about failing to live up to her
strong image, a fear that drives her to tackle any task as quickly and efficiently as possible.
However, while she acts like she's comfortable doing so much work,
inside, her feelings of overwhelming exhaustion leave her feeling weak,
riddled with self-doubt, and depressed. Meanwhile, Isabela is the star of the family,
and her place as the picture of perfection has led her to continue to try and keep up appearances.
Until she lets that control go in her song "What Else Can I Do,"
she's secretly afraid her family and neighbors will realize she's a lot messier than they know.
"Go on."
While "Encanto" makes it clear that the Madrigal family has been dealing with some big issues, by
the conclusion of the film they've begun to tackle the intergenerational trauma that's impacted all
of them. They've also started the healing process. This is triggered when Mirabel seeks out Bruno,
forcing the family to talk about him for the first time in a decade. While the conversation
initially scares many of the family members, based on the song "We Don't Talk About Bruno,"
many of them are also happy to finally let their suppressed feelings about Bruno out.
This initially leads to greater turmoil in the family, but eventually it forces Abuela
to recognize her children and grandchildren have more to offer than just their gifts.
When it comes to intergenerational trauma, an adjustment by one member of the family impacts
the whole family. Abuela's change of heart also makes the other family members see that there's
more to life than their gifts. As they rebuild their destroyed house together, they come to
embrace themselves and each other, flaws and all. By becoming more open and accepting,
the Madrigals start to move past their trauma and become a happier, healthier family.
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