Seize Your Moment

“Seize your moment”(Coco 2017) was a very influential phrase in Pixar’s Coco, directed by Lee Unkrich, co-directed by Adrian Molina starred Anthony Gonzales as main character Miguel, Gael Garcia Bernal as his co-lead, Hector, and Benjamin Bratt as the villain, Ernesto de la Cruz. The movie is about a boy who fights to be able to play music, despite his family’s wishes. He accidentally winds up in the land of the dead, and comes back, reuniting his family along the way. Coco portrays many different desires using the plot, the characters themselves, and by what they stole.

In order to see the different desires of the characters, the plot of the movie must be known. The movie starts out with the backstory; A mother, father, and very young daughter are together. The father leaves to play music, promising to back home, but he never does. The mother assumes that he has left his family, breaking multiple promises to her, so she pushes him out of their entire family’s lives. She throws out all pictures of him, all letters she and her daughter, Coco, had received from him, and not allowing music into their lives. This goes on for many generations.

In the present day, Coco is very old, and her great grandson, Miguel, loves music, even though it is forbidden. Miguel was inspired by a famous musician, Ernesto de la Cruz, who was famous for saying the line “seize your moment”(Coco 2017) and having a very specific guitar. Miguel notices an old picture from when Coco was very young, that featured Coco, her mother, and her father, her father holding the guitar. Miguel asks his grandmother whether she recognizes this guitar, and she says that it is her papa’s guitar. This leads Miguel to believe that de la Cruz is his grandfather, and surely de la Cruz would want him to play at the Dia de Muertos festival. The only problem is that Miguel does not have a guitar. He tries to ask other people for one, but nobody has a spare guitar. Miguel only sees one option. He needs to take his grandfather’s guitar, the guitar belonging to de la Cruz.

Order custom essay Seize Your Moment with free plagiarism report

450+ experts on 30 subjects Starting from 3 hours delivery

Get Essay Help

Because he took the guitar on Dia de Muertos, the day set apart to give to the dead, he was cursed, trapped in the land of the dead until he receives his family’s blessing. Miguel easily finds most of his family, except for his grandfather. They can give him their blessing, but they only will if he gives up music. This is a price that he is not willing to pay, and so he tries to find his grandfather, de la Cruz, surely he, a musician, would not force the boy to give up music. But de la Cruz is famous, and hard to get to. Miguel overhears a man, he would learn that this man is named Hector, say that he can get anyone to de la Cruz, and Miguel introduces himself and says that he would like to take that offer. The only conditions are that it has to be Miguel’s only option to get back to the land of the living, and once he gets back, he must keep the man’s memory alive.

Miguel agrees to this, and together they work to get to de la Cruz, and through many hardships, ending in a confrontation with de la Cruz, they learn a few truths about the family. Hector is Miguel’s grandfather, not de la Cruz. The picture had Hector’s guitar in it, which matched de la Cruz’s because they were musical partners. The last truth is that de la Cruz killed Hector. In order to protect himself, de la Cruz steals Hector’s picture, the key to keep his memory alive. Miguel seeks out the rest of his family to help him get Hector’s photo back, and together they disgrace de la Cruz by revealing his atrocious murder. Miguel returns home, but without Hector’s photo. He asks his grandmother, Coco if she had any other pictures of her father, and she had indeed stolen a picture that her mother had tried to throw out. Everything that happens is driven by what the different characters desire.

What things do some of the characters desire? Miguel, the rebel teen of the family, has a battle between music and his family. Coco is the connection between everything in this story. We only see her when she is very young, and very old. At any time that she talks, she talks of her papa, of the love she has for him, how much he loved her. When she was very old, Coco battled Alzheimer's disease, and often would not talk or even move. Even with this disease affecting her memory, she remembered her papa.

Finally, Ernesto de la Cruz, the villain is self-centered, self seeking, everything he does is for himself. His battle is quite different from the others, because his battle is between fame and truth. He must not let the truth of the things that he has done come to the surface, because that would brew hate in everyone towards him, which is what happens at the end of the movie. Even his best efforts cannot save himself from the hate of others. All of these characters have incredibly strong desires, and act on these desires.

The thing that all of these characters have in common is that, because of their desires, they take something that does not belong to them. The whole story is kicked off when Miguel steals de la Cruz’s guitar, even though “Dia de Muertos is a day to give to the dead, you stole from the dead”(Coco 2017). Stealing the guitar was the only option that Miguel saw. He had already tried asking other people, he had even made his own, but his family found it and destroyed it. Coco stole her father’s photo, even when her mother was so mad at him for deserting them, stomping out anything that could lead down the same path he went.

Coco still loved her papa, even when she saw the heartache that he had caused her mother. She even saw how Miguel had seen the good that her father, Hector had done. The most despicable thing that was stolen was when de la Cruz stole Hector’s songs. Everything that de la Cruz was for his moment, and he was unwilling to share his spotlight. Because he was so selfish, he could not create anything that was genuinely good, like Hector’s love for his daughter.

Everything that Hector made was for Coco, they were literally the letters that he wrote to her, the songs that he sang to her. De la Cruz even took every ounce of genuine quality out of his most famous song, Remember Me, which creates this disconnect. De la Cruz fills Remember Me with trumpets, dancers, lights, he doesn’t even think about the line “remember me each time you hear a sad guitar”(Coco 2017). There is no sad guitar in de la Cruz’s Remember Me.

Coco shows different values of different people in what different characters do, how those characters act, and by looking at things the characters have taken. Seeing how these characters have such different values gives a certain level of insight as to how much that can affect a person. It begs the question of what a person is willing to do to seize his or her moment.

Don't let plagiarism ruin your grade

Run a free check or have your essay done for you

Check my essay Hire Writer