Movie Monday: Anastasia

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To Europe With Kids presents Movie Monday as a weekly feature to recommend films that might expose children and their families to any small bit of European history, folklore, scenery, or animated imagery as entertainment, perhaps new knowledge, or just a couple of hours of electronic babysitting.

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As I sat there over the weekend musing out loud, "What will be my Movie Monday post this week?" my daughter said, "Do animated movies count?  How about Anastasia?  It takes place in Russia and Paris!"  So Anastasia it is.  Thank you, dear daughter.  And since she just watched it last week, I had her write the summary:

When the evil villain Rasputin attempts to finish off the Russian Royal Family, only Princess Anastasia and her grandmother, Empress Marie, survive.  Marie escapes to Paris, but Anastasia is left behind in St. Petersburg.  After ten years in an orphanage, Anastasia sets off to discover her identity, with no memory of her royal life.  She finds two men seeking the reward money for turning in the Princess to the Empress in Paris.  The three of them take the train to Paris together.  However, Anastasia doesn't know that the men are only doing this for the money.  The Empress has already seen many girls pretending to be Anastasia and is tired of being disappointed.  But the characters' persistence convinces her to at least look at Anastasia.  After a joyful reunion and exciting events in the city of lights, everything ends happily ever after.  The characters sing a song about Paris and dance on the Arc de Triomphe and at the Moulin Rouge. They go up in the Eiffel Tower.  Because this is a Disney movie, it has the classic villain "scariness" that might not be appropriate for kids under six.

Authored by my daughter, age 14.

Other Movie Monday posts:

Sound of Music
The Waltz King
Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates
When in Rome
Percy Jackson & the Olympians:  The Lightning Thief
Madeline
Hogan's Heroes
The Moon Spinners
Heidi
Animated Heidi
Around the World in 80 Days
National Lampoon's European Vacation
Young Sherlock Holmes