Shrek - Animation for Grown Ups Spoilers

I can´t handle it, every time that I watch Shrek I have the feeling that very few movies can give to me; Relief, fun and at the same time, reflection. ¿Why is Shrek such a good movie? We will answer this question soon because is not a secret now, I pleat as a hug fan of this film both for its plot and for its characters. Hardly we can imagine the animation today without the Shrek´s influence, because is part of a powerhouse in the animation´s field; Dreamworks. A company that it has been the core (besides Disney, of course) of the animation on Hollywood for at least two decades.

Since the beginning the film present to us a single ogre with a lazy life, without worries or struggles. The people don’t want him and he feel comfortable with this scenario. Everything is going smoothly till he must to save a strange donkey from his captors. This is the main inflexion point on the story, because since this situation as a chain, all the Shrek´s life will change forever. We are witness of his transformation, since an egotistic and lazy man to a brave, attentive and (we can say it) wiser person.

Fiona is a beautiful princess that is caged on the top of a tower where a dangerous dragon lives, and we don’t know much more about this woman, why or what takes her to live in captivity. But we know that Shrek is “obligated” to save her for a feudal lord whose name is Lord Farquaad. A little, arrogant and ruthless nobleman that needs to get married with a real princess in order to become himself king legally. Since this point the movie takes us for an amazing path full of adventure, discovery and beauty in the purest form than we ever seen. Fiona and Shrek have a romance that simmers and we really enjoy every false step, clumsiness and restrained speech between these two lovebirds. Their feelings are struggling with problems very similar in the real life, and due this we can understand them very well, maybe too well.

Soon the story shows us the Fiona secret, but ¿The love is not a secret too? This is a hard question and every person need to find out the answer alone. In the end, the person that we fall in love with is not the person that we want, but we need.

Shrek is one the few animated films that takes us seriously with a clever argument, deep characters and insightful dialogues. Themes like the friendship, the love between two people from different social environments and the psychology´s subtleness with which the director treats his characters is unbelievable and poignant. The movies owe a lot to Shrek, and the cultural eco is always recognizable, mostly for every grown up that needs to remember the happiness and fascination that we dream with in the childhood.

As Antoine de saint Exupéry said “The best adults are those who have not forgotten that they were children”.