The Book of Life (2014)

Jorge R. Gutierrez's The Book of Life arrives with its heart pinned openly to its sleeve, which is not a criticism so much as a diagnosis. The film concerns Manolo, a bullfighter who would rather play guitar, and the two realms of the dead that await him. What it does with Mexican folklore, marigold petals, and the iconography of the Day of the Dead is genuinely committed. The voice cast is Latino almost throughout, and that decision registers as deliberate for a major studio animated release. The visual scheme, all carved wood and painted dolls, refuses the smoothing that usually accompanies computer animation. This is a film that knows what it is and where it comes from.

The cultural affirmation is thorough and largely unaccompanied by argument. It celebrates a heritage without turning that celebration into an indictment of anyone, which keeps the temperature low. María, the object of the central rivalry, is allowed a temper and a mind of her own; she frees the butcher's pigs and defies her father's marital scheming. She is still the prize in a two-man contest, and her story concludes with the selection of a husband. The film's interest in her independence extends exactly as far as the plot requires and no further.

The closing counsel, delivered by Ice Cube's Candle Maker, urges the audience to write its own story. It is a pleasant sentiment, softly administered, and the film never stops to lecture. There is no ecological sermon, no reckoning with class, no interrogation of history. What remains is a handsome, warm-hearted entertainment with a specific cultural inheritance and a modest sense of its own virtue. It is easy to admire and difficult to argue with, which may be the point.