Despite being a company centered around an adorable talking mouse, Disney has been responsible for producing plenty of devastating animated movies that have certainly traumatized countless kids over the years. But that’s all part of growing up, right? You live, you laugh, you watch a helpless cartoon animal being slaughtered in front of you at a very young age. It’s all crucial to that development process that teaches us that sometimes life is not fair. Also, we’re taught that humans can’t really eat a whole slice of pizza with one giant bite, but that’s another story. The point is, ever since the early days of Disney, the company has been churning out valuable life lessons at the cost of our mental well-being. Not every movie can be as lighthearted as The Garfield Movie. But which animated Disney movie is the most devastating of them all?
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There are plenty of obvious contenders that probably come to mind. Bambi likely scarred more generations of children than any other animated movie. The Fox and the Hound is as compelling as it is gut-wrenching. It can be a tough watch for even the most cold-hearted moviegoer. Then there’s Up, which is just so unflinchingly blunt about the harsh realities of life. All of them are emotional movies that are very moving in their own way. But the most devastating movie, which is often overlooked, is Lilo & Stitch.
Grieving in Paradise
What makes Lilo & Stitch such an effectively devastating movie is the setting in which it takes place. Set on the Hawaiian island of Kauaสปi, the film follows the trials and tribulations of orphaned teenager Nani Pelekai (Tia Carrere), who has recently lost her parents. In an effort to keep her family intact, Nani becomes the legal guardian of her little sister, Lilo (Daveigh Chase), a free-spirited girl who marches to the beat of her own drum.
To make matters worse, Nani is constantly looking over her shoulder for Cobra Bubbles (Ving Rhames), a social worker assigned to her family’s case. And if that weren’t enough, Stitch (Chris Sanders), an intergalactic escaped experimental patient, crash lands a spacecraft on Kauaสปi and is seriously wounded. He is then placed in an animal shelter after being mistaken for a dog. Luckily for Stitch, Lilo is there to nurse him back to health and love him unconditionally. But unbeknownst to her, Dr. Jumba Jookiba (David Ogden Stiers), a mad scientist and Stitch’s creator, is hot on Stitch’s heels and is desperate to catch him.
While all of that sounds like too much to follow, it’s exactly the type of whirlwind chaos that people going through the stages of grief face all of the time. Even the smallest of tasks can sometimes feel like a lot, which is why Lilo & Stitch is so devastating. Animated movies aren’t supposed to be this heavy. That should be left to films like the critically acclaimed horror movie Midsommar. Nani is going through her own grieving process over her parents, but she must put all of that to the side and take care of her rambunctious sister. And despite still being a kid herself, she does so willingly. It’s a heartbreaking situation that is only compounded by Stitch’s wacky and explosive actions, which only create more problems for Nani and her social worker. The fact that all of this happens on an island that is often called paradise is not only poetic, but cruel.
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“Ohana Means Family”
While life can be particularly cruel sometimes, especially in animated Disney movies, there is one thing that helps to have when dealing through a crisis. And that’s family. As the wise philosopher Dominic Toretto once said, “I don’t have friends, I have family.” Some people don’t get to choose who their family is. Others are able to build their family as they go. In Lilo & Stitch, Nani and Lilo are bonded by blood. Their personalities couldn’t be any more different yet through it all, they are together. Nani could have easily walked away from her sister and chose to live her life as a free teenager without the crushing responsibility of raising a young child. But she made her choice.
The same can be said about Stitch. While he is a ball of chaotic energy that struggles to know right from wrong, he learned from Lilo. He learned about the strength of “ohana” and the benefit of sticking together. Like Nani, he could have walked away and freed himself from his newfound family. But he too made a choice. Lilo & Stitch is the most devastating animated Disney movie because being a part of a grieving family is something that all of us have to go through at some point. And like Nani, Lilo, and Stitch, we also have a choice on who we consider our true family.
You can stream Lilo & Stitch on Disney+.
