Movie Review: WISH

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: November 22nd, 2023 / 02:20 AM

WISH movie poster | ©2023 Walt Disney Pictures

Rating: PG
Stars (voices): Ariana DeBose, Chris Pine, Alan Tudyk, Angelique Cabral, Victor Garber, Natasha Rothwell, Jennifer Kumiyama, Harvey Guillén, Niko Vargas, Evan Peters
Writers: Jennifer Lee & Allison Moore, story by Jennifer Lee & Chris Buck & Fawn Veerasunthorn & Allison Moore, additional story material by Carlos López Estrada & Andrew Rothschild
Directors: Chris Buck & Fawn Veerasunthorn
Distributor: Walt Disney Pictures
Release Date: November 22, 2023

WISH is a movie that looks like it was made before its makers fully finalized exactly what they intended to do. It has a worthwhile metaphoric message, strong vocal performances, and occasional moments of charm and effective humor. However, WISH is also a bit of a mess.

In WISH, we are on the Mediterranean island of Rosas. The sorcerer Magnifico (voiced by Chris Pine) has founded a kingdom here, where he is able to protect his subjects with the magic he has learned. Rosas is a tranquil, happy place, where the citizens love their monarch.

On each Rosas resident’s eighteenth birthday, they tell Magnifico their wish. If Magnifico deems the wish worthy (and not likely to endanger the status quo), he grants it.

Not-yet-eighteen-year-old Asha (voiced by Ariana DeBose) hopes that her grandfather (voiced by Victor Garber) will be honored on his hundredth birthday by having his wish granted. To this end, she gets a job interview to be Magnifico’s assistant. Things start off well, but take a turn when Magnifico confides that, one he hears a wish, he removes it from the wisher’s mind, and keeps hold of ungranted wishes forever.

Asha thinks this sounds extremely unnecessary and unfair. Even if Magnifico can’t grant the wish, people ought to at least be able to remember what it is that they wanted. Magnifico somewhat huffily disagrees, and Asha goes home, jobless, to her mother (voiced by Natasha Rothwell), grandfather, and pet goat Valentino (voiced by Alan Tudyk).

Remembering gazing up at the night sky with her late father, Asha wishes upon a star. To her astonishment, an anthropomorphic little yellow Star comes down from the sky. A great light washes over Rosas, delighting the inhabitants – except for Magnifico, who views this as a threat to his power.

The plot from the screenplay by Jennifer Lee & Allison Moore, from the story they crafted with the film’s directors Chris Buck & Fawn Veerasunthorn, has the advantage of talking in broad strokes about something real. As another reviewer has pointed out, WISH deals nigh-directly with concepts of intellectual property theft. The parallels are clear and, given the recently-concluded Writers Guild of America strike, could scarcely be timelier.

But too many details don’t fit right. Has no one else in Rosas wished upon a star before Asha? Why does Star come down now? What exactly can and can’t Star do?

Likewise, character beats feel odd. When one character goes through what should be an alarming change, it just seems like an amplification of what has come before. Likewise, when a betrayal occurs, we know so little about the betrayer that it doesn’t register.

Even the plentiful musical numbers seem a little strange. DeBose, as demonstrated in her Oscar-winning performance in 2021’s WEST SIDE STORY, has a gorgeous voice and uses it to top effect here. Pine shows that he can do leading-man vocals admirably.

But the choreography for the musical numbers (excepting those involving singing animals) is made to resemble theatrical staging. It’s not unreasonable to suppose that production/distribution company Walt Disney Pictures is hoping for a stage version of WISH, but surely strictly human dancer-style moves can wait for that. While it’s not explicitly demanded of the art form, animated musicals usually avail themselves of the opportunity to do things that can’t be done in live action. There are bits of this, but fewer than we might expect.

There are things to like in WISH, including Tudyk’s slightly pompous baby goat, some stunning backgrounds, and Star’s playful good cheer. It’s just not all that we might, er, well, you know, the title ..

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