Thumbelina (1994)

The story of Thumbelina was originally a fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson. It's the story of a thumb- sized girl and her adventures in life and love. The film begins with an old woman. The woman is lonely and has always wanted a child of her own, and one day a fairy grants her wish and gives her a small seed. The old woman plants the seed and kisses it when it's ready to bloom, and inside she finds a tiny girl no bigger than her thumb, whom she then calls Thumbelina. Thumbelina is quite contented with her life on the old woman's farm. She tries to help out with chores, but only seems to her herself into scrapes whenever she tries to help. She loves her mother though and is happy. One night, Thumbelina is singing to herself in her room when, as chance would have it, the prince of the fairies flies by her bedroom window and is enchanted by her voice. He takes her for a ride on his pet bumblebee and they sing and fall in love. He then returns her to her room with the promise of returning. On that romantic ride through the meadow, a frog over hears Thumbelina singing and thinks to herself that this small girl would make a great addition to their travelling show and would make her son a good wife. So she kidnaps her that very night while Thumbelina slept, before the prince could come back to marry her. When Thumbelina awakes and discovers what the frogs have planned for her she runs away from them and tries to make her way back home, but being so small she can't see above the grass. The frog whom she escaped from is hot on her tail so quickly makes her way through the company of various bugs and birds and rodents who both try to help her and try to capture her. In the end the swallow, who also is the narrator of the story, helps her find her way to the vale of the fairies, where she hopes to find her prince.  They end up getting married  and Thumbelina grows a pair of wings to match her prince's and they all live happily ever after.

I liked this movie a lot when I was a kid. I'd sing the songs with my cousin when we watched the movie together, though apparently according to Wikipedia the 'marry the mole' song won the worst original song award. I remember feeling kind of awkward that all of these creepy guys wanted to marry Thumbelina and I guess that sort of took away from the movie a bit for me, but overall the memories are pleasant. Thumbelina isn't a strong character by any means, she sort of just gets tossed around by fate and always needs rescuing. The prince also isn't any knight in shining armour. He acts as a boy would, shirking responsibilities and spouting idealism without having anything to back it up. The villains are also kind of one-dimensional in their drive to get Thumbelina. Besides being struck by her voice, which isn't enough to make someone fall in love, there isn't really anything substantial in their desire to marry her. Besides a few character flaws however, this really is a sweet film. The songs are catchy, I like the animation, and the story is adventurous with a kiss at the end, short, sweet, and nostalgic.