Amy Diaz – Page 38

West Side Story (PG-13)

West Side Story (PG-13)

Get Maria and Tony, the Sharks and the Jets, the dance-fights and the love songs plus Rita Moreno in West Side Story, the Steven Spielberg-directed film adaption of the 1957 stage musical.

If you are totally new to West Side Story in any form, it is basically Romeo & Juliet with New York City-born Tony (Ansel Elgort) and recent arrival from Puerto Rico Maria (Rachel Zegler) as the star-crossed lovers and the gang of angry nativist boys calling themselves the Jets and the Puerto Rican gang called the Sharks standing in for the Montague and Capulet families. Here, racial animosity, economic fears and encroaching gentrification in the Upper West Side of mid-century New York City form the basis of the resentments between the opposing camps, instead of whatever the beef was back in fair Verona.

In Maria’s corner: her older brother Bernardo (David Alvarez), the leader of the Sharks; Bernardo’s girlfriend Anita (Ariana DeBose), and Chino (Josh Andrés Rivera), a nice boy with a good future in accounting whom Bernardo is shoving at Maria.

In Tony’s corner: Riff (Mike Faist), head of the Jets, and Valentina (Rita Moreno), widowed owner of corner store Doc’s, who is letting Tony work and live at the shop. Valentina, who has sort of adopted Tony, is also Puerto Rican, which is perhaps why Tony seems less focused on the turf struggles than Riff. Well, that and the fact that he’s had a good long while to think about the nature of violence while serving time for his part in a previous brawl.

I’m not at all objective about this movie or this musical; it is one of my longtime favorites. So even when the movie felt a little flat in the opening few scenes, I was always having a good time. But, happily, it grew on me. The more we got of Anita, Bernardo, Valentina and even Riff, the more interesting I found this movie’s take on the material and the more I generally liked the movie. The movie sort of rides the line between seeming like it’s in a real place and feeling like a stage set. Scenes in the Puerto Rican neighborhood approached a kind of reality (or, at least, golden age Hollywood musical reality) but other scenes, particularly some of the scenes set amid the construction rubble of half-demolished slums, felt more like an excellent tech crew was working with a very large budget.

The least interesting thing about the film is probably the Tony-Maria love story. Elgort is mostly fine, Zegler is quite good, bringing more depth to the occasionally drippy-seeming character of Maria. Their relationship had more oomph than I remember from the 1961 movie — more actually than most Romeo & Juliet stories I’ve seen. But all the stuff going on around them and all the supporting characters — to include smaller roles like Anybodys (Iris Menas) or Valentina or Chino or the storyline about the urban renewal projects displacing many neighborhoods — are more interesting than the two people who “love at first sight” during a dance battle. (A well-staged dance battle. All of the choreography here is electric and has that “big Hollywood musical dance number” showmanship, all bright colors and screen-filling extras.)

As with the 1961 movie adaptation of West Side Story, Anita is the movie’s standout character, followed here by Valentina (which feels fitting, since Moreno won an Oscar for playing Anita in the 1961 movie). Anita is awesome, her showcase song “America” is the banger it always is, her wardrobe is a costume-y delight and she gets the movie’s most complex (if super downbeat) arc. DeBose brings all the energy and stage presence the role calls for and absolutely shines throughout. I also appreciated the movie’s take on Anita’s personal goals and the relationship between Bernardo and her, and their different experiences with trying to make it in New York. This movie doesn’t modernize the play’s politics, necessarily, but it does bring some 2021 awareness to the racial and economic issues in the story.

This adaptation of West Side Story doesn’t explode its box or do something entirely new, but it adds enough little details or tweaked elements that it does feel like its own thing while still presenting you with the songs and characters you know and love. A-

Rated PG-13 for some strong violence, strong language, thematic content, suggestive material and brief smoking, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Steven Spielberg with a screenplay by Tony Kushner, West Side Story is two hours and 36 minutes long and distributed by Twentieth Century Studios in theaters.

Being the Ricardos (R)

A series of potential calamities hits the I Love Lucy show during one week in the early 1950s in Being the Ricardos, an Aaron Sorkin-written and -directed movie that is in theaters now and slated to stream on Amazon Prime on Dec. 21.

On Sunday, Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman) gets an early peek at a tabloid story alleging that her husband, Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem), is a serial cheater — worse, she’s getting the story after he’s been gone for a couple of days. After he comes back, claiming he spent the time playing cards on his boat and swearing that he’s been a faithful husband, the two start to make up — only to have their making out interrupted by Walter Winchell’s radio report of a blind item about the most popular woman in television being a secret communist. Maybe he means Imogene Coca, Desi tries to calm her by saying, but Lucy knows he’s talking about her.

On Monday, Lucy and Desi meet with officials from CBS and Philip Morris (the show’s largest advertiser) to explain the situation — or rather, to sort of explain the situation. Desi tells them she checked the wrong box when registering to vote decades ago, though privately Lucy says her one-time communist party affiliation was a tribute to the grandfather who raised her. The story hasn’t hit the papers yet, but Lucy and Desi work to reassure their show’s staff, the network and Philip Morris that Lucy’s no communist and that this hit show, now in its second season, will go on.

Monday’s craziness pushes their intended big news of the week back a day: Lucy is pregnant and, rather than hide that fact on TV with laundry and giant chairs, Desi wants Lucy Ricardo, her onscreen persona, to be pregnant on air as well. Of course, pregnant women are indecent (somehow) and shake the very foundations of society (or something) and aren’t to be shown on television, is the network’s position, which the couple will have to work to change.

Will the show last long enough for Desi to get his boundary-breaking pregnancy storyline or will news of Lucy’s recent appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee sink the show before Friday’s tape time? This is the most urgent part of the story, but Lucy’s fears about Desi’s infidelities and the possible breakup of their marriage also bubble steadily in the background. Then there’s the ongoing, very active dislike between costars William Frawley (J.K. Simmons) and Vivian Vance (Nina Arianda), who is bristling at her character’s dowdiness being a running gag (and a likely bit of typecasting from which she won’t escape). We also watch writers Madelyn Pugh (Alia Shawkat) and Bob Carroll (Jake Lacy) jostling for position with executive producer Jesse Oppenheimer (Tony Hale).

The movie is framed with an older trio of actors playing those last three characters as they look back on that week, a conceit that allows for a lot of exposition delivery. It’s not the smoothest bit of scene-setting and character-building ever put on screen, but it gets the job done — which is maybe how I’d describe the movie overall. Nobody blows you away but nobody stinks up the joint, performance-wise. This is neither the most nor the least Sorkiny Sorkin screenplay; I think in the main his writer tendencies work with the material and the story as he’s chosen to tell it.

In addition to directly being told about the volatility of Lucy and Desi’s relationship, we get flashbacks that sort of deepen the exploration of the characters and their motivations. You know, sort of. This movie reminds me a bit of last year’s Mank for how it gives you a picture of an earlier era of showbiz, showing you both the golden public image and the grimier behind-the-scenes happenings. But while that movie was Doing A Thing (giving you the behind-the-scenes of Citizen Kane in the style of Citizen Kane), Being the Ricardos is a more straightforward take that blends network politics, national politics and marriage politics with bits of several people’s biographies. This movie is solid, enjoyable if you are at all interested in TV or Hollywood or any of the big names involved — and the fact that it will soon be available for viewing in your home is all the better. B

Rated R for language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, Being the Ricardos is two hours and 5 minutes long and is distributed by Amazon Studios in theaters and will stream on Amazon Prime starting Dec. 21.

FILM

Venues

AMC Londonderry
16 Orchard View Dr., Londonderry
amctheatres.com

Bank of NH Stage in Concord
16 S. Main St., Concord
225-1111, banknhstage.com

Capitol Center for the Arts
44 S. Main St., Concord
225-1111, ccanh.com

Cinemark Rockingham Park 12
15 Mall Road, Salem

Chunky’s Cinema Pub
707 Huse Road, Manchester; 151 Coliseum Ave., Nashua; 150 Bridge St., Pelham, chunkys.com

Dana Center
Saint Anselm College
100 Saint Anselm Dr., Manchester, anselm.edu

Fathom Events
Fathomevents.com

The Flying Monkey
39 Main St., Plymouth
536-2551, flyingmonkeynh.com

LaBelle Winery
345 Route 101, Amherst
672-9898, labellewinery.com

The Music Hall
28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth
436-2400, themusichall.org

O’neil Cinemas
24 Calef Hwy., Epping
679-3529, oneilcinemas.com

Red River Theatres
11 S. Main St., Concord
224-4600, redrivertheatres.org

Regal Fox Run Stadium 15
45 Gosling Road, Newington
regmovies.com

Rex Theatre
23 Amherst St., Manchester
668-5588, palacetheatre.org

The Strand
20 Third St., Dover
343-1899, thestranddover.com

Wilton Town Hall Theatre
40 Main St., Wilton
wiltontownhalltheatre.com, 654-3456

Shows

• The Polar Express (G, 2004) will screen multiple times at all three Chunky’s locations through Thursday, Dec. 16. Tickets cost $5.99.

• The Danish Collector: Delacroix to Gauguin (2021) screening at Red River Theatres in Concord on Wednesday, Dec. 15, at 6 p.m.

• House of Gucci (R, 2021) screening at Red River Theatres in Concord on Thursday, Dec. 16, at 3:30 & 7 p.m. and Thursday, Dec. 23, at 6 p.m. (vaccinated guests); Friday, Dec. 17, through Sunday, Dec. 19, at noon, 3:30 & 7 p.m.

• Die Hard (R, 1988) screening at Red River Theatres in Concord on Thursday, Dec. 16, at 7 p.m.

• Nightmare Alley (R, 2021) screening at Red River Theatres on Friday, Dec. 17, through Sunday, Dec 19, at 12:30, 4 & 7:30 p.m. and (for vaccinated guests) on Thursday, Dec. 23, at 6:30 p.m.

• Elf screening at Christmas Break on a Budget on Saturday, Dec. 18, at noon at The Strand in Dover. The afternoon will include storytime, family activities and the movie. The cost is $20 for a family of four or $8 each.

• National Lampoon’sChristmas Vacation (PG-13, 1989) will screen at Regal Fox Run on Saturday, Dec. 18, at 1 p.m. Tickets $5.

• The Polar Express (G, 2004) will screen at the Park Theatre (19 Main St. in Jaffrey; theparktheatre.org) on Saturday, Dec. 18, at 1 p.m. Admission is free but go online to get tickets. Have a photo taken with Santa and Elves in the lobby.

• The Bolshoi Ballet — The Nutcracker A broadcast presentation captured live, Sunday, Dec. 19, at 12:55 p.m. at the Bank of NH Stage in Concord. Tickets cost $15.

• It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) will screen at all three Chunky’s locations on Sunday, Dec. 19, at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $5.99.

• The Music Hall will show a series of holiday movies during Christmas week at its Historic Theater (28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth), including White Christmas (1954) on Tuesday, Dec. 21, at 3 p.m.; Love Actually (R, 2003) on Tuesday, Dec. 21, at 7 p.m.; It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) on Wednesday, Dec. 22, at 3 and 7 p.m.; The Grinch (2018, PG) on Thursday, Dec. 23, at 3 p.m.; and Last Christmas (2019, PG-13) on Thursday, Dec. 23, at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $15 for adults and $12 for seniors age 60 and up, students, military and first responders. Visit themusichall.org or call 436-2400.

• The Strong Man (1926) starring Harry Langdon and directed by Frank Capra, a silent film with live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis, on Sunday, Dec. 26, at 2 p.m. at Wilton Town Hall Theatre. Admission is free; $10 donation suggested.

• The Senior Movie Mornings Series at the Rex Theatre (23 Amherst St., Manchester) presents White Christmas(1954) on Tuesday, Dec. 28, at 10 a.m. Tickets cost $10. Call 668-5588 or visit palacetheatre.org.

Featured photo: West Side Story. Courtesy photo.

Kiddie Pool 21/12/16

Family fun for the weekend

Ho ho ho holidays

The holiday happenings — plays, concerts, Santa appearances and more! — continue this weekend. Check out our big listings of holiday events in the Nov. 25 issue, packed full of Christmas/winter/general holiday-themed events happening through the end of the year. You can find the e-edition at hippopress.com.

Holiday fun at the movies

This weekend you’ll find fun for families with kids of all ages at area theaters.

• For the littlest moviegoers: Catch The Polar Express(G, 2004) on Thursday, Dec. 16, at the O’neil Cinemas at Brickyard Square (24 Calef Hwy. in Epping; 679-3529, oneilcinemas.com) at 1:30 and 4:05 p.m.

• The Polar Express (G, 2004) will also screen at the Park Theatre (19 Main St. in Jaffrey; theparktheatre.org) on Saturday, Dec. 18, at 1 p.m. Admission is free but go online to get tickets. Have a photo taken with Santa and Elves in the lobby.

• Elf (PG, 2003) is screening at Christmas Break on a Budget on Saturday, Dec. 18, at noon at The Strand (20 Third St. in Dover; 343-1899, thestranddover.com). The afternoon will include storytime, family activities and the movie. The cost is $20 for a family of four or $8 each.

• Show your ballet-loving dancer how the pros do it with a broadcast presentation of the Bolshoi Ballet — The Nutcracker on Sunday, Dec. 19, at 12:55 p.m. at the Bank of NH Stage (16 S. Main St. in Concord: 225-1111, banknhstage.com). Tickets cost $15.

• For the cinephile kid interested in the classics: It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) will screen at all three Chunky’s Cinema Pub locations (707 Huse Road, Manchester; 151 Coliseum Ave., Nashua; 150 Bridge St., Pelham, chunkys.com) on Sunday, Dec. 19, at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $5.99.

• For the cinephile teen interested in the 1980s version of the classics: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (PG-13, 1989) will screen at Regal Fox Run (45 Gosling Road in Newington; regmovies.com) on Saturday, Dec. 18, at 1 p.m. Tickets cost $5.

• For watching with the teen who is old enough to argue the merits of the “is it a Christmas movie?” debate: Die Hard (R, 1988) is screening at Red River Theatres (11 S. Main St. in Concord; 224-4600, redrivertheatres.org) on Thursday, Dec. 16, at 7 p.m. The screening is part of the theater’s “Vax & Snax” program, when the concession stand will be open but guests must be vaccinated (see the website for details).

Winter-y fun outdoors

• The Beaver Brook Association (117 Ridge Road in Hollis; beaverbrook.org) will hold its annual Winter Solstice Family Event on Sunday, Dec. 19, with time slots from 2 to 4 p.m. There will be a self-guided trail with a nature story about the origins of the winter solstice, plus facts about New England wildlife and the tradition of the Yule log. The cost is $12.

• Charmingfare Farm (774 High St. in Candia; visitthefarm.com) continues its Santa’s Christmas celebration this weekend (Dec. 17 through Dec. 19) and on Thursday, Dec. 23. Attractions include a horse-drawn wagon, live animal Nativity, visits with Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus and live “reindeer,” s’mores kits available for purchase, and hot cocoa and complimentary sugar cookies provided by Mrs. Claus.

Nutcracker season continues

• New England School of Dance presents The Nutcracker on Saturday, Dec. 18, at 2 and 5:30 p.m. at the Stockbridge Theatre (Pinkerton Academy, 5 Pinkerton St. in Derry). Tickets cost $30. See newenglandschoolofdance.com.

• Ballet Misha presents The Nutcracker on Saturday, Dec. 18, at 1 and 6 p.m., and Sunday, Dec. 19, at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., at the Dana Center (Saint Anselm College, 100 Saint Anselm Dr. in Manchester). Tickets cost $26. See dimensionsindance.com.

• The New Hampshire School of Ballet presents The Nutcracker Suite at Concord City Auditorium (2 Prince St. in Concord) on Sunday, Dec. 19, at 2 p.m. (and at the Palace Theatre in Manchester on Sunday, Dec. 26, at 6 p.m.). Tickets cost $22. See nhschoolofballet.com.

At the Sofaplex 21/12/09

8-Bit Christmas (PG)

Neil Patrick Harris, Steve Zahn.

I’ve seen this movie described as an update of A Christmas Story and it definitely has shades of that, though it may be even more family-friendly. Here, present-day dad Jake Doyle (Harris) tells his young, iPhone-wanting daughter Annie (Sophia Reid-Gantzert) about a Christmas back in the 1980s when he desperately wanted a Nintendo. His parents, Kathy (June Diane Raphael) and John (Zahn), go from not exactly knowing how to pronounce “Nintendo” to being violently opposed to ever having one in their house. Young Jake (Winslow Fegley) and his friends try a variety of schemes to ensure that one of them will wind up with a Nintendo while Jake’s younger sister Lizzy (Bellaluna Resnick) works on getting that equally rare item, the Cabbage Patch Kid.

I thoroughly enjoyed this family comedy, with its Harris-narrated tale of life in the 1980s, occasionally edited to explain to his daughter that “of course all kids wore bike helmets.” The story features plucky kid-quests in search of the game system or the money to buy it while also offering really good-hearted examinations of kid social relationships — the bullies, the perceived weirdos, the habitual liars. It also does a good job with the age-old struggle between the “why can’t you and your friends just play outside” parents and the “X piece of tech is the Most Important Thing Ever” kids. A Available on HBO Max.

A Boy Called Christmas (PG)

Henry Lawfull, voice of Stephen Merchant.

Maggie Smith is the dour-seeming great-aunt of three gloomy and grieving children who comes to their house to babysit. Though they want nothing to do with Christmas this year, having recently lost their mother, she settles in to tell them a story about a boy named Nikolas (Lawfull) who lives deep in the woods in Finland in olden days. The king (Jim Broadbent) asks people to go on quests to the farthest reaches of his realm in search of something that will bring magic and hope into people’s lives. Nikolas’ father (Michiel Huisman) sets out in search of a magical place that Nikolas’ mother used to talk about, Elfhelm. After running away from the horrible aunt (Kristen Wiig) left to care for him, Nikolas also goes in search of his father and Elfhelm, taking along with him Miika (Merchant), a mouse that, to his great surprise, he’s taught how to talk.

Along the way they help a reindeer that Nikolas starts calling Blitzen and they meet a community of elves who are part of the resistance to an oppressive new elf regime run by Mother Vodol (Sally Hawkins).

This is a darker live-action Christmas tale, with orphans and parents who have died and discussions of grief and sadness. But in that dark fairy tale way, and for kids maybe in the 9-years-old-and-up range who don’t mind that kind of story, the movie is also sweet, adventure-packed and straightforward in how it deals with kids’ emotions. I think Maggie Smith’s narration, with its Princess Bride-style interruptions, helps sell that particular mood of kids working through stuff and of kids learning how to stay hopeful in the face of a world that isn’t always about loving moms and happy elves. B+ Available at Netflix.

Waffles + Mochi’s Holiday Feast (TV-Y)

The humans here include Tracee Ellis Ross, Samin Nosrat and Mrs. O (Michelle Obama), the owner of the market where Waffles and Mochi normally hang out to learn about food. In this half-hour holiday special, the market is closed for the holiday season and Waffles and Mochi, enamored of all the talk about special holiday foods, tell their friends it’s Freezie Day and accidentally invite the whole gang over for a Freezie Day feast. This leads Mochi to set out around the world to learn about a few winter-solstice-season celebrations and gather some holiday treats while back at Waffles’ house the guests talk about their own cultural winter holiday traditions. Like the show Waffles + Mochi, the holiday special is the right mix of learning, puppet-y fun, food, silliness and sweetness. B+ Available on Netflix.

Shaun the Sheep: The Flight Before Christmas (TV-Y)

Voices of Justin Fletcher, Kate Harbour.

Shaun, his sheep friends, the dog who watches after them and their farmer, with another harebrained scheme to make money, return in this charming 30-minute Christmas-themed special. The farmer’s attempts to sell soda at a local Christmas fair and the littlest sheep’s curiosity about gifts come together, resulting in the whole flock riding a Santa sleigh on their way to heist-like hijinks at the home of a little girl who thinks she’s been gifted a robot sheep. As usual, this story has no real words, just lots of grunts and meeps and British-y noises. Sheep silliness is the star of this very all-ages-friendly holiday fare with, as always, top-notch Aardman animation. A Available on Netflix.

Encanto (PG)

Encanto (PG)

A girl growing up in a magical family with a magical house tries to find her place in the world in Encanto, a lovely new animated movie from Disney.

Mirabel (voice of Stephanie Beatriz) is a member of the “magical Madrigal” family, whose members all live together in a large house in an idyllic Colombian valley. All of the adult members have their own superpowers that they call their “gift.” Mirabel’s mom, Julieta (voice of Angie Cepeda), can heal people with her cooking. Her sister Luisa (voice of Jessica Darrow) has superhuman strength. Her “perfect” sister Isabela (voice of Diane Guerrero) can make gardens of beautiful flowers grow and bloom at will. Her aunt Pepa (voice of Carolina Gaitán) can control the weather. Pepa’s children, Mirabel’s cousins, Dolores (voice of Adassa) and Camilo (voice of Rhenzy Feliz), have superhearing and shape-shifting powers, respectively. Only Pepa’s and Julieta’s husbands (voiced by Mauro Castillo and Wilmer Valderrama) are non-magical, having just married into the family.

Abuela (voice by María Cecila Botero) is in charge of the house and the family and her power seems to be having the triplets — Julieta, Pepa and Bruno (voice of John Leguizamo), “we don’t talk about Bruno” is the family’s position about that brother — that kicked off the family’s magic and caring for the family and the town that grew up around the house.

The house, which has a magic of its own, responding to voice commands and occasionally being a little sassy, and the family get their magic from a long-burning candle that became charmed as a sort of miracle after the death of Abuela’s husband long ago. He died helping his wife and children — and the people who became the townsfolk — escape from the bad guys on horseback who had chased them out of their former hometown and into the jungle. His sacrifice leads to the miracle of the magic-giving candle and a forest that grows to create a hidden valley where the people can live safely.

Abuela is determined to keep the house, the family and the magic going so that they can all stay safe in this green, beautiful and, it’s implied, somewhat hidden valley. But as the years go by, Mirabel never develops her gift. When she starts to see some cracks in the house, Abuela secretly fears that the house, the magic and the family could be falling apart but is determined for the town to see only the strong, magical family they’ve always been.

Mirabel’s quest — because these movies always have a quest — is to figure out what is putting the magic in danger and to save the family’s miracle. To do this, she sets out to find clues about Uncle Bruno, whose power was seeing the future and who vanished years ago.

Encanto is a truly beautiful movie — beautiful all the way around, beautiful music, beautiful songs that play with South American musical elements, beautiful jewel-toned visuals, beautiful characters that display a wide diversity of the people you might find in one Latin American family. And it has some really beautiful messages about being yourself, figuring out your place in the world, loving and celebrating family not for the image we want to project but for what it and its members truly are. And it has a fair amount of humor. There isn’t a wisecracking dragon or snowman but the cousins bring plenty of their own quirky senses of humor to the situation.

I feel like there is a lot here that I appreciated initially and that I will only grow to enjoy more with subsequent viewings (and I’m sure there will be subsequent viewings, as this movie comes to Disney+ on Dec. 24).

But — and it kills me that there’s a “but” — there is also something off about Encanto, like a cake where one layer is way too thick and one layer is way too thin and the whole thing is leveled off with large frosting patches. The movie takes a long time to get to the central problem — and I’m still not entirely certain I understand what that problem was — and rushes through things such as Isabela’s discovery that she can make things other than soft, rose-like flowers and Luisa’s stress at having to carry so much weight all the time. Bruno is a really well-developed and intriguing character that the movie doesn’t always seem to know what to do with. I would have loved Mirabel as a child, with her curly hair and her glasses and her lack of a discernible Thing, and she’s a great character to build an adventure around but, as with so many other elements in this movie, her whole arc seems rushed. We see her worry A Lot about her place in the family if she is not gifted like everyone else but the resolution of this comes very fast and feels unfinished. Maybe there are so many good characters, so many ideas, that the movie spends too long setting up all its pieces and leaves not enough time to play out their stories? So many times it feels like a really interesting point or a fairly big character development is sort of sewed up with one very fast line of dialogue.

I feel like I need to watch Encanto again to really figure out how I feel about this movie. But I guess the best recommendation I can give for it is that I look forward to another viewing. I may not have always understood what Encanto is doing but it’s such a lovely world to spend time in. B

Rated PG for some thematic elements and mild peril, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard and co-directed by Charise Castro Smith with a screenplay by Charise Castro Smith & Jared Bush, Encanto is an hour and 42 minutes long and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures in theaters (and on Disney+ starting Dec. 24).