Short Review: Disney Animation's "Versa" Is the Studio's Most Emotionally Courageous Short Since "Paperman"

Grief, love, and the courage to let the light back in — these are the themes at the heart of Versa, a new short from Walt Disney Animation Studios that earns comparison to the studio’s most emotionally ambitious work, including Paperman and the legendary Destino. Directed by Malcon Pierce, a 16-year Disney veteran whose credits as animator and animation supervisor span the Oscar-winning Frozen, Moana, and Raya and the Last Dragon, Versa is the first production completed entirely at the studio’s Vancouver location, and a remarkable debut for Pierce as a director.

Set entirely in the cosmos, the short follows two celestial beings — she cast in cool blues, he in warm golds — as they discover each other, fall in love, and hope to bring a new star into the universe. The short doesn’t arrive at joy easily. Inspired by Pierce’s own experience of losing an infant son during the production of Moana, the film treats grief with a directness that is rare in Disney animation, depicting a couple who must break apart before they can come back together. That fracture draws from kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold — the idea that what has been broken can be more beautiful for having been repaired. It is a devastating and ultimately hopeful metaphor, and Pierce earns every moment of it.

Visually, Versa belongs in the same conversation as Fantasia, the explicit inspiration behind its music-driven storytelling. The characters move like figure skaters, gliding and spinning through nebulae with a fluidity informed by real Olympic choreographers and by cinematographer Jordan Cowan, who captured ice dancers on location for the animators to reference. The backgrounds — inspired in part by images from the James Webb Space Telescope — are among the most breathtaking environments Walt Disney Animation Studios has ever produced. Color carries enormous narrative weight throughout: the cool blue of the woman and the warm gold of the man aren’t merely aesthetic choices; they define personality and emotion in a film told entirely without dialogue.

The score, composed by Haim Mazar and performed by a 65-piece orchestra, is the short’s other standout achievement. Ethereal and muscular by turns, it does the emotional work that words would diminish. That pairing of silence and sweeping orchestration puts Versa firmly in the tradition of Disney’s most purely cinematic short-form work.

A word of honest preparation for prospective viewers: Versa is heavy. The loss at its center is depicted with enough emotional weight that younger viewers — and even some adults — may find it difficult. The short does have a joyful ending: a final image of the couple’s new child, whose very design symbolizes a rainbow baby, and a bittersweet echo of The Princess and the Frog, as their lost child appears in the sky as a constellation. But this is not a short to put on for the whole family without knowing what’s in it first. For parents who have experienced pregnancy or infant loss, Versa is likely to be profoundly meaningful. For everyone else, it is a breathtaking piece of animation that asks to be taken seriously — a reminder that the medium is capable of going anywhere the human heart can go.

I give Versa 4.5 out of 5 literal stars.

Versa premieres Friday, March 27th, on Disney+.