COCO (PG)
★★★★

ANIMATION powerhouse Pixar have given us some of the most beloved films of the past 20-plus years, from Toy Story to Ratatouille. Their latest effort is a visually gorgeous, emotionally textured and culturally rich tale that celebrates the unique bonded love of a family, the power of music and life itself.

It centres on the deep-rooted Mexican national holiday Dia de Los Muertos, aka Day of the Dead. Our hero is the adorable Miguel (voiced by Anthony Gonzalez), a 12-year-old boy desperate to become a guitarist and singer despite his family’s explicit ban on all things musical.

He yearns to be like his hero, the late and much celebrated crooner Ernesto de la Cruz (Benjamin Bratt) whom Miguel also believes to be the father of his great-grandmother Coco (Ana Ofelia Murguía) and whose abandonment decades prior is the source of his family’s disapproval of music.

On the night of the holiday Miguel is desperate to prove himself by performing publicly, but needs a guitar after his grandmother Abuelita (Renee Victor) smashes his own in anger of his defiance. When he decides to sneak into his hero’s tomb to borrow his famous guitar, he finds himself transported to the Land of the Dead where he is reunited with various deceased family members.

He soon discovers that in order to return home he must get the blessing of a certain family member. Assisted by skeletal dead man Hector (Gael García Bernal), he embarks on a musically tinged adventure to find a missing ancestor across a land he never truly believed existed until now.

Directed by Lee Unkrich (Toy Story 3) and co-directed by Adrian Molina, the film finds enough identity of its own by fusing the spirited eccentricity of its chosen cultural focus with familiar, tried-and-tested themes like the quest to find your true self, cherishing memories and the meaning of family. It also never shies away from the fact that, yes, people eventually die, but it’s never in a gruesome way that would scare a younger audience.

Having relied on the safe familiarity and box office bankability of sequels for the past few years with Cars 3 and Finding Dory, it’s nice to see arguably the world’s most cherished animation studio take a bit of a risk again with a story so deeply entrenched in a specific cultural heritage. But it’s a risk that wonderfully pays off, taking a deep dive into a world that will be unfamiliar to many in an accessible way that welcomes you with open arms to revel in the resplendent visuals, idiosyncratic customs and to get caught up in the music that plays such an integral part of the plot. It’s a testament to the storytelling and visual world-building that you completely believe in the fantastical spirit realm filled with a skeletal population, fluorescent buildings and multicoloured animal spirit guides.

The film brilliantly races along to the melody of several ear-worm musical numbers that will have you humming along as they touch your soul. The signature tune Remember Me recurs throughout and seems to exemplify the emotional richness of the piece and, particularly in the film’s stirring final moments, epitomises the film’s fine-tuned ability to tug at your heartstrings and get the old tear ducts flowing.

It may not reach the heady heights of some of Pixar’s previous achievements but nevertheless this is a whirlwind animation told with charm, heart, imagination and admirable through-and-through respect for the tradition that it’s depicting.