let's go home

like listen... 55+ years ago a bunch of actors had to use a mix of existing habits and wild imagination to come up with what they felt would be believable movements and muscle-memory for someone using completely unbelievable tech a few hundred years in the future. like tv had less than ten channels and the screen was a foot across, and they had to go "ok how would someone who's used to a tiny wireless gadget with a screen hold it and use it? how would they talk to a computer? how would the computer sound when she talked back?"

Loads of people already sung their praises as fathers and husbands (and yet nobody has talked about the way Agustín just close his eyes and opens his mouth when Julieta says “Eat!”) so I want talk about the implied relationship between them. The focus is on Mirabel so we don’t get to see Agustín and Félix talk with each other but for a movie that’s only one hour and 39 minutes long we get a lot of hints that they’re very very close.

They’re introduced together in the song “The Family Madrigal”. They dance into frame together and keep some pretty deep eye contact even when Mirabel pops up between them and push them apart.

When they appear on screen together again they’re back to looking at each other. Not even the sisters appear to have eye contact.

In “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” Agustín only shows up to help Félix set the table and then he completely disappears from the song again.

When Julieta and Agustín try to comfort Mirabel about not being given a magical ability Agustín says he understands because “when Félix and I married into the family” they too felt small and insignificant in the presence of all the exceptional people. Not “when I married into the family” but “Félix and I”. These guys confided in each other. They talked about some deep emotional stuff and worked some shit out together. They’ve bonded.

The whole thing about Agustín and Félix doing house chores while the rest of the family works in town comes from a deleted scene where we see even more of this bond, and I think Mariano will fit in perfectly. I get the impression that Mariano has been too coddled by his mother to have much experience with housework but he’s also a very caring and sensitive himbo who seems eager to care for a family of his own so I think he would take to the househusband role very easily.

Creating stuff is hard rn so I made some low stakes, feel good sketches <3

[ID: two sketches of Jonathan Sims and Martin Blackwood from the Magnus Archives. Jon has short hair, a patchy beard and a faint eye halo. Martin has a baby-face and messy hair that is longer, but still short. Martin is much taller than Jon.

The first sketch shows the two looking down at something behind the viewer with serious expressions.