‘Moana’ Is on Netflix Now, and the Good News Is That It’s Crazy Rewatchable

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Moana

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It’s crazy to think that a $248 million Disney blockbuster could have been undervalued and under-discussed, but that’s pretty much what happened with Moana last year. The combination of post-election malaise plus a crowded Oscar season plus a little bit of Frozen fatigue (and some Hamilton fatigue, if we’re being honest), meant that when Moana showed up, the reviews were good (but not rapturous), the box-office was strong (but not as strong as Zootopia), and the songs were catchy (but apparently not as catchy as La La Land‘s). The reception was positive … but a little muted.

Which means that the occasion of Moana hitting Netflix today is the perfect opportunity for this Disney film to do what Disney films do best: have a nice, long life burrowing itself into the collective subconscious of the culture at large. Directed by Ron Clements and John Musker (the team behind The Little MermaidAladdin, and The Princess and the Frog) and written by Clements, Musker, Jared Bush, Chris Williams, Don Hall, Pamela Ribon, and Aaron and Jordan Kandell, Moana is every bit as re-watchable as Frozen, though it never seems quite as calculated. Perhaps a big part of the credit for that goes to Lin-Manual Miranda’s work on the music for the film. The Broadway superstar behind Hamilton teamed up with Opetaia Foa’i to write six original songs for the film, and if you’re at all familiar with Miranda’s work on Hamilton or In the Heights, you’ll easily recognize his influence, even before you get to “We Know the Way,” where he and Foa’i provide vocals.

The music in Moana propels along a simple but affecting story of a young Polynesian girl, daughter of the chief, who longs to take to the ocean and adventure and explore. When — as all heroes must — Moana does end up defying her father’s wishes and heads out on the water in order to save her people from a blight, she meets up with demigod Maui — Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, giving by far his best performance from the last two years at least — and the two of them seek the island goddess Te Fiti. Boil down the South Pacific mythology and you have very much the hero’s tale, and Moana the character fits easily and enthusiastically into that role. One of the most remarkable things about Moana is the ease and unfussiness with which it delivers an unambiguously feminist tale. They do it by just doing it. Moana is the hero of her own story, her journey isn’t even tangentially about finding a man, and her triumph is free of any hand-wringing or meditations on her overcoming her gender role. It was hard to watch this movie and not think of the knots that a movie like Brave — or even, at times, a movie like Frozen, which is smart about its gender politics but still expends a good bit of effort to make sure we know that —tied itself into in order to deliver Pixar’s vision of a feminist heroine. Meanwhile, from the moment that Moana belts “How Far I’ll Go” from her perch on the edge of the ocean, the audience fully gets all the longing and defiance that are subtext to the simple fact that Moana wants to be the hero of her own story.

Moana feels central to the current wave of popular culture in a way Disney movies — slow and lumbering as they are to get from the idea stage to the screen — don’t often do. There’s a reason that people are mashing up Moana and Wonder Woman into memes (really, really good memes). There’s a reason why “How Far I’ll Go” lingers with you long after those La La Land Oscar-winning songs have left your brain.

Moana is in it for the long haul, and will probably be the best-remembered of this current wave of Disney hits. The fact that you and/or your kids will be able to fire up Netflix and throw on Moana whenever you want means, much like the line where the sky meets the sea, Moana will be calling to you. Often.

Stream Moana on Netflix.