No One Is Talking About Dolores Madrigal In Encanto
When you have a big mouth in an immigrant family and no filter, you will get called out for it. It especially applies when you spill a big secret on a regular basis. So you learn to keep secrets, as a means of survival. If someone ventures into adulthood still not keeping their mouth shut, people don’t trust you.
Encanto manages to nail the aspects of being part of an immigrant family. You get a matriarch who suffered trauma and as a result, thinks that she needs to control every aspect of her family’s individual lives. We also have siblings that love each other but face unequal power dynamics, metaphorically and literally. You also have the one person that cannot keep their mouth shut. Dolores Madrigal is that person. She frustrated me while watching the movie.
Dolores messed up with her gift of superhearing. It is hard to ignore that fact on a rewatch. She tells the neighbor kids bluntly that Mirabel has no gift, and later tactlessly spills the beans about Bruno’s prophecy. This contributes to Abuela continuously isolating Mirabel and making her feel “other”. Then there are her actions later in the movie. Are they good intentions, or are they motivated by selfish pettiness?
