Alan Menken and Glenn Slater turn musical tropes on their head in “Spellbound.”

Alan Menken has spent a lifetime writing musicals. But to this day, the EGOT-winning composer admits that working on a new musical is an extremely difficult task and not for the faint of heart: “There’s a reason why musicals are so often adaptations,” says the composer. That’s because in an adaptation, the story beats are already there, making it easier to pinpoint the emotional moments that require a song.

But for an original musical, you have to fully flesh out the story while Figuring out where the songs should go. Which for Menken, as he admits somewhat regretfully, isn’t as funny as it sounds. He exclaims, “When people say, ‘Write a song you want to write.’ I say, “Oh, this is hell.” This is hell! Tell me you want a song sung by someone who is late for the train going from East Side to West Side. Give me all the details and I’ll know how to write the song.”

That’s partly the reason for the new animated musical film banned-for which Menken composed the music with his long-time writing partner, lyricist Glenn Slater – the two worked on it for five years, and the first two years were admittedly difficult. That’s because the film’s director, Vicky Jenson, and its three screenwriters (Lauren Hynek, Elizabeth Martin, and Julia Miranda) were still trying to figure out the arc of their story in those early years.

In the film, released on Netflix on November 22nd, Romeo + JulietRachel Zegler is the voice of Princess Ellian, whose parents were turned into monsters. With her parents indisposed, Ellian is forced to become the adult in the room, running the magical kingdom of Lumbria and finding a way to turn her parents back into humans. The film also features the voices of John Lithgow, Jenifer Lewis, Tituss Burgess, Nathan Lane, Javier Bardem and Nicole Kidman.

Spoilers ahead!

While Banned Set in a magical land, it gradually becomes clear that the film is actually an allegory about divorce – that Ellian’s parents are monsters because they can’t stop fighting, which makes Ellian feel like she has to be the one keeps the family together. “There’s no romantic arc to it at all,” Menken says. “There is no villain. So that dramatic tension really has to come from Ellian’s inner journey and how we express that.”

Slater worked with Menken at Disneys Confused And The Little Mermaid on Broadway. He describes Banned as a sort of “reverse fairy tale” because it takes the tropes of the Disney princess musical film genre, but uses them to tell a different kind of story – one in which the heroine and her family undertake an emotional journey rather than a physical one . Musically, this meant that Slater and Menken used the conventions of musical theater that audiences understood while also upending expectations.

Slater explains: “We have an upbeat opening number in which the heroine introduces us to her world, but what she is really doing is hiding and hiding from us the reality of her feelings for the world by giving in to what she feels , gives a positive note.” We can clearly see that this is not a positive situation. We have a song that works like a villain song, but it’s sung by her two advisors who actually only want the best for her… And so we’re always playing with these conventions all the time. Because this is a fairy tale, but it’s a kind of reverse fairy tale. And it doesn’t really have a happy ending, but it has its own internal logic that makes it work on its own terms.”

Nowhere is this play with musical conventions more evident than in Ellian’s “I want” song, called “The Way It Was Before.” While a typical musical theater song “I want” is forward-looking, “The Way It Was Before” is nostalgic and begins with a pensive solo piano.

“We realized we didn’t have time for our audience to understand what was at stake for Ellian, who desperately wants her parents to get back together,” explains Slater. “But until this song, we didn’t see what that meant to her: What were her parents like? What was that relationship like? What would it actually mean to get that back?”

Menken continues, “I love what they’re doing visually (in the film), where it’s actually about this broken piano, which is kind of a metaphor for a broken family.” It’s wistful, but it has a hopeful overview. And the way we work is music first. I will sit at the piano and play with ideas. And when we get down to business, it just feels right.”

Maybe this all feels like a more mature story to mature for young audiences. But in a world where divorce is commonplace, Menken and Slater see Banned as a way to reassure young viewers who may find themselves in this situation. And to reassure them that they don’t have to be the heroes of their own families.

“We’ve seen kids watch these types of films and really take the lessons to heart, even if it’s subliminally,” Slater explains. “So we wanted to make sure that the children didn’t feel like they were the ones who had to get their parents back together, that it was their job to keep the family together, that they should feel guilty, or that they were somehow doing it. “Guilt for what is happening in her family. That’s a lot for an animated film to do, but once we decided to take on this task, we had to be honest about it and make sure that we were giving children a message that wasn’t heroism on such a level as No Child can really achieve it.”

Menken even admits to feeling “deeply emotional” while working on the film. Despite being married to his own wife Janis for over 50 years, what Ellian and her parents are going through Banned Sounds familiar to any family that has gone through difficult times. “We have a solid marriage, but I can still identify with the things that have happened in our lives that have deeply affected our daughters,” says Menken. “I can see it in the rearview mirror and it kind of breaks my heart.”

And in the end, isn’t that what a good musical can achieve? Help us see situations in our own lives more clearly? “Musicals can’t just consist of this brain,” Menken says, pointing to his head before pointing to his heart. “The gut has to be a very, very important tool to create a successful musical.”

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