It’s easy to be cynical about a film like Disney’s Frozen, a box office behemoth that coined in huge sums of money around the world and gave rise to an irritatingly catchy and infectious song that dominated the commercial radio airwaves for what felt like months. But scoff all you like – Frozen is a hugely enjoyable, if rather derivative, romp that deserved every bit of its huge success. When it comes to your natural cynicism you might just have to learn to just (and be honest, you saw this gag coming a mile away…) let it go…

The story has its roots in Hans Christian Andersen’s immortal 1844 short story Snedronningen/The Snow Queen, a project that had exercised Disney for many years. They’d toyed with the idea of a live action and animated biopic of Andersen as early as 1937, even before Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) had been released and had tried to interest Samuel Goldwyn in a co-production in 1940. But the company struggled to find a way to adapt The Snow Queen in a way that contemporary audiences would enjoy, and the project floundered, resurrected periodically throughout the years until it was finally given a boost in 2008 when the recently arrived John Lasseter was keen to see a film adaptation finally reach the screen.

In truth, the finished product bears only passing similarities to Andersen’s work. The Disney version, directed by Chris Buck (who had co-directed Tarzan (1999) and Surf’s Up (2007)) and first timer Jennifer Lee (who had previously co-written Wreck-It Ralph (2012) and who scripted Frozen solo), tells the story of sisters Elsa (voiced by Idina Menzel) and Anna (Kristen Bell), princesses of Arendelle. Elsa secretly possesses magical powers to create objects out of snow and ice, but as a child accidentally injures Anna and the girls are sent to live with a colony of trolls led by Grand Pabbie (Ciarán Hinds). Anna is healed but loses her memories of Elsa’s abilities and Elsa grows up in isolation to prevent any more mishaps. As adults, their parents are killed in a sea accident and in on Elsa’s coronation day, she’s worried that her powers might become common knowledge causing the people of Arendelle to fear her. Anna, meanwhile, is just loving the fact that he castle gates have been opened for the day and is mixing with the many visiting dignitaries who include the duplicitous Duke of Weselton (Alan Tudyk) and the handsome Prince Hans of the Southern Isles (Santino Fontana). Anna and Hans fall in love and ask Elsa for permission to marry but she refuses and in a heated confrontation between the sisters Elsa again accidentally unleashes her powers. Elsa flees to the North Mountain where she creates for herself a grand ice palace, vowing to again live in isolation, unaware that she’s inadvertently plunged Arendelle into an eternal winter.

And so the stage is set for a classic Disney adventure – there’s heroism, unrequited love, a quest and a happy ending as Anna sets out to find Elsa and bring her home. Along the way she teams up with ice cutter Kristoff (Jonathan Groff), his reindeer Sven, and a living snowman named Olaf (Josh Gad). There’s an unusual late in the day twist where a supporting character is revealed to be someone very different to what been led to believe but any resemblance to The Snow Queen becomes increasingly fleeting as the story winds along.

Frozen was the first Disney animated feature since Home on the Range (2004) to feature songs and parents of youngsters around the world might have had cause to curse the company when they heard the main show-stopper here. Let It Go, written, like all of the songs in the film, by the husband-and-wife songwriting team of Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez became the earworm of the Christmas 2013 period and soon became the butt of jokes galore. But, thanks to the spirited performance by Menzel (in Empire magazine, Helen O’Hara’s note that “Menzel belts Let It Go like it insulted her mother” is surprisingly accurate) and the extraordinary visuals that accompany it, of Elsa magically raising her huge and impressive ice palace, it’s a genuinely rousing moment. Other songs are good, but none have had quite the durability of Let It Go.

One could turn up one’s nose at the rather derivative nature of the film and the holes in the plot, but when you’re an over-excited child – particularly a little girl who just wants to be Elsa or Anna – it barely seems to matter. It tips its hat towards the contemporary craze for superhero films in the representation of the destructive power of Elsa’s magic, and for older audience it seems to be flirting with Universal horror with its theme of a “monster” being exiled by superstitious villagers. Those same adults will marvel at the quality of the animation – the Let It Go/palace building sequence is breathtaking – and the radical step of revealing a seemingly heroic character as the chief villain. The whole thing has the revisionist air of the Shrek films with modern witticisms aplenty and some deconstruction of the Disney princess films.

If it is derivative, audiences just plain didn’t care. Frozen was an extraordinary success and in 2013 it took enough at the box office to topple Toy Story as the most successful animated film of all time. It was later outdone by The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023), its own sequel and the remake of The Lion King (2019) but it was a sure sign that the doldrums that Disney had been climbing out of for several films were possibly firmly behind it. The stunning animation, likable characters, great voice cast and – let’s make no bones about it – the infectious soundtrack help to make Frozen the must-see family film of Christmas 2013. Frozen-mania was a phenomenon commented upon by several commentators as children became obsessed with it in a way that Disney animation hadn’t seen since the heyday of the “Disney renaissance” in the late 1980s. That Frozen-mania eventually led to a not-so-good sequel, Frozen II (2019) and a Broadway stage musical, a flurry of short films and the promise of at least two more feature film sequels still to come. For good or for ill, Disney had really hit on something with Frozen – whether the franchise can stand up to multiple outings remains to be seen, but this was a very creditable start.