Review: Disney's 'Encanto' creates a magical house, and a fascinating set of characters to inhabit it

The bright and breezy “Encanto” is, we’re told by the studio logo, the 60th animated feature to come out of the Walt Disney Studios — and it carries the hallmarks of that brand, of a simple story told beautifully.

In a picturesque valley in Colombia, everyone comes over to see what’s happening with the Madrigals, the most prosperous family in the village. The Madrigals arrived in the village 50 years ago, on the run from bandits, according to the matriarch, Abuela Alma (voiced by Maria Cecilia Botero), and her three babies each were given a magical gift: Pepa (voiced by Carolina Gaitan) changes the weather with her moods, Julieta (voiced by Angie Cepeda) can heal with her cooking, and Bruno (voiced by John Leguizamo)… well, “we don’t talk about Bruno,” as it says in one of the bouncy songs written by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

The gifts go down to the next generation. Julieta’s daughter Luisa (voiced by Jessica Darrow) can lift a dozen donkeys at once, while her middle daughter Isabela (voiced by Diane Guerrero) makes flowers appear wherever her perfect hair swishes. Only Julieta’s youngest daughter, Mirabel (voiced by Stephanie Beatriz) is without a magical gift, so she tries to compensate by being as helpful as she can — even under Abuela’s disapproving eye.

When Mirabel’s cousin Antonio (voiced by Ravi Cabot-Conyers) is about to undergo the ceremony where he receives his magical gift, Mirabel has a vision of the Madrigal casita developing cracks and threatening the candle that is the fount of the family’s magic. Abuela doesn’t want to hear it, and doesn’t believe Mirabel, which makes the girl even more determined to figure out what’s going wrong. Mirabel is sure the answer lies in the family’s most enduring mystery: What happened to Bruno?

Directors Jared Bush and Byron Howard (who filled the same jobs on “Zootopia”) create a rich color palette for the Madrigal’s casita — and for the fanciful animation during several of the musical numbers. The sharpest animation work is in depicting the casita, whose floorboard and roof tiles move in rhythm, keeping the Madrigal family on time and on task throughout their busy days.

The script, by Bush and co-director Charise Castro Smith (a playwright making her movie debut), is smart and soulful. It takes the story into some unexpected directions, and finds both the dark and light in several of the main characters — aided by Miranda’s song score, which deliver the clever wordplay, tricky rhythms and emotional punch one expects form the man who wrote “Hamilton” and “In the Heights.”

“Encanto” is, as its name suggests, quite enchanting in its depiction of a family dealing with external crises and internal strife — but weathering them together, to the beat of the music.

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‘Encanto’

★★★1/2

Opens Wednesday, November 24, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG for some thematic elements and some mild peril. Running time: 99 minutes; plus a 7-minute short, “Far From the Tree.”