The Little Mermaid Adds A New Friendship Element To Ariel And Eric's Romance

Disney's live-action version of their 1989 animated classic "The Little Mermaid" is about to hit theaters. If you're familiar with the Disney princess genre and the fairy tales that some of them are based on, you know that the characters can often be very young. Most of the princesses are said to be teenagers. In fact, in the live-action version, Ariel (Halle Bailey) is referred to as a teenager more than once. 

This is fiction, of course, but the idea of a teenager marrying can be upsetting for many people, even if that person is a mermaid and the other is a 21-year-old prince (Jonah Hauer-King, who plays Prince Eric). The main thrust of the story is that Ariel asserts her own wants and needs and breaks away from what she's been told to do for what feels right to her. That's a big part of one's teenage years, making it more difficult to set the story, say, in her 20s. 

Though the script didn't change her approximate age, the film has added something that was less focused on in the animated version: friendship. I recently attended the press conference for "The Little Mermaid," where Hauer-King spoke about the importance of that. I also spoke to director/producer Rob Marshall and producer John DeLuca about the choice and how they handled it in a two-on-one interview. 

During the press conference, Jonah Hauer-King was asked about his favorite new addition to the live-action version of "The Little Mermaid." He said: 

"Friendship, I think. Disney romances are always, they're filled with that instinctive attraction to one another. We all want to see that, but I think what was fun about this, and I think a lot of it came from our off-screen selves as well, was looking at Ariel and Eric as two people who were kindred spirits, who felt a little bit restless, who felt like they were behind the four walls of their respective castles and were very much looking outwards and not in. 

"And I think what was nice about that was that it meant that their relationship feels really earned. They both felt like they were teaching each other things. They were excited and fascinated by each other's world although they didn't actually know it until the end."

He added that it was "really lovely" that this relationship is "ultimately tied to friendship" and said that it was why it would be a lasting one. Having seen a screening of the film, the friendship elements were far clearer than they were in the animated version. It had more of the feel of people getting to know each other and enjoying each other's company than two people who think the other is very, very pretty. (To be fair, they are both very, very pretty.)

Friendship may have been Jonah Hauer-King's favorite addition to the live-action version of the story, but it was a deliberate choice by Rob Marshall and John DeLuca. In our interview, I asked them whether there was ever any discussion of these two not getting married because of Ariel's age. Marshall said they'd talked about it but that "the union that they create is something that actually begins the healing process of between these two worlds."

DeLuca added: 

"And we really wanted the relationship to be what won out and having them really experiencing each other as friends, deep, deep friendship. So it wasn't just falling in love with a handsome guy or the pretty girl. And so the wedding, we didn't show the wedding. We don't really have a wedding because we didn't want to make it that it was all the penultimate thing is the wedding. No, it's the relationship. They're going off together and adventuring together."

In the end, this is a fantasy, and I don't think any 16-year-old is getting married because Ariel and Eric did it. Still, I like the fact that the relationship was the thing that the movie focused on and not the wedding itself. 

"The Little Mermaid" will hit theaters on May 26, 2023.