Review of The Fox and the Hound (1981) by Carlos M — 01 Nov 2015

By turns one of Disney's most sincerely sweet, and also one of its darkest and emotionally bleakest. Sure, it retreads quite a few things that other Disney films have - hunting, orphans, the cruelty of humans to animals, and so on - but, unlike others, it provided a social commentary about the impacts of prejudicial isms on interactions that applied more to humans than to the animals experiencing the dramas themselves. Even more oddly, at least for a Disney film, it ended on a rather bittersweet note; with a head-nod resolution of sorts, but an undercurrent of acknowledgement that things will never be as they were at the beginning - something I wish they'd embrace more in their stories, rather than constantly going for a broad hand-wave of Everything is Perfectly Fine.

The only complaint I have, really, is that I didn't find the songs all that memorable, but that's a minor blemish on an otherwise fantastic film. Truly one of the House of Mouse's best, and also one of their most under-appreciated, likely due to the fact that the film has a distinct tonal division between first and second halves.