The Princess and the Frog

When The Princess and the Frog was first released in 2009, I took my nine-year-old niece to see it and it was absolutely magical for her to be able to look up at the screen and see a Disney princess who looked like her.  After seeing it on the big screen she watched the DVD over and over and sang every song.  She even had a Princess Tiana dress!  This movie may have a few flaws (I still think the voodoo scenes are a little weird, especially for a film marketed to children) but Tiana was definitely important to my niece and I can't think of a better role model for her to emulate.  The Princess and the Frog is being screened again at AMC Theatres as part of the Dream Big, Princesses film festival so I invited Tashena, who is now almost seventeen, to see it with me again last night.  We had so much fun!  She says she doesn't really remember when I took her to see it the first time but she certainly remembers the words to all of the songs because she sang them all at the top of her lungs (we were the only ones in the theater).   Tiana (voiced by Anika Noni Rose) is a young girl determined to succeed and open the restaurant she has always dreamed of owning.  Prince Naveen (voiced by Bruno Campos) is a ne'er-do-well who has been cut off financially by his parents.  Naveen turns to voodoo to make his dreams come true but he is inadvertently turned into a frog.  Thinking that Tiana is a princess because of a costume she is wearing, Naveen asks her to kiss him to break the spell, promising her the money she needs to start her restaurant, but when she does she is also turned into a frog.  Naveen and Tiana must discover what they need, rather than what they want, in order to break the curse with the help of a jazz playing crocodile, a Cajun lightening bug, and blind voodoo priestess (some really fun characters).  I really loved all of the scenes in the bayou, especially when all of the lightening bugs guide Tiana and Naveen to Mama Odie because it looks so magical (it reminded me of the lantern scene in Tangled).  I had forgotten how great the hand-drawn animation is in this film.  It was such a fun night and I'm glad that, for a little while, I got to spend some time with the little girl who wanted to be just like Princess Tiana!  The Princess and the Frog will be screened at AMC Theatres until Oct. 12.