The Book of Life (2014) on Netflix
PG20141h 35mAdventureAnimationComedy
Manolo Sánchez wants to be a musician, not the bullfighter his family expects, and he and his friend Joaquín love María Posada. Two underworld rulers wager on whom she will marry.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb7.2/1085,695 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes83%
Trailer
Plot summary
Mary Beth, a museum tour guide, leads a group of students on a secret tour and reads them a story kept in the Book of Life. In the Mexican town of San Angel, Manolo Sánchez, Joaquín Mondragon Jr. and María Posada grow up together, and both young men love María. In the Land of the Remembered and the Land of the Forgotten, the rulers La Muerte and Xibalba watch and make a wager about whom María will marry; Xibalba gives Joaquín a medal that makes him invincible. Manolo's father Carlos trains him to fight bulls, the family's tradition, but Manolo wants to play music and refuses to kill a bull in the ring. María's father, General Ramiro Posada, wants her to marry Joaquín, now a celebrated soldier, to keep the Bandit King Chakal away from San Angel.
Cast
Show all 20 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Book of Life (2014)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
The Book of Life was originally optioned by DreamWorks Animation in 2007 but never went beyond development because of creative differences: DreamWorks demanded that the film not take place in Mexico, that the characters not be wooden dolls, that there be no bullfighting and that the main character could not die.- Gutierrez did not permit his animation team to go on any research trips to Mexico, feeling that such trips often only covered very touristy aspects of the culture. Instead, he had the team address any questions they had about the region to him.
- The posters painted the characters' doll joints to look more human, because the makers were scared audiences would not be able to feel empathy for wooden folk art dolls.
- Jorge R. Gutierrez first began developing The Book of Life fourteen years before its release, and several of the film's story ideas originated in his 2000 student film Carmelo.
- Gutierrez had always imagined the film as the first of a trilogy, the second about Joaquín and the third about Maria. Development on a sequel was announced with Reel FX in June 2017, but by June 2019 he clarified on Twitter that there were no plans for one.
- Guillermo del Toro voices the Land of the Remembered Captain's Wife, the unnamed wife of the Land of the Remembered Captain, a woman who died of a broken heart.
