Polar Bear Parent Guide

With its usual impeccable timing, Disney+ is releasing Polar Bear on Earth Day 2022. Parents usually embrace new releases from the Mouse House, but before you get out the popcorn (or kale chips) and settle down with the little ones in front of the TV, I need to sound a note of caution.

Disneynature productions run the gamut from cheerful edutainment to more somber documentaries about the harsh realities of the natural world. Polar Bear falls on the sadder end of that spectrum, with no comedy and plenty of real-life tragedy.

The movie centers on an unnamed female bear (voiced by Catherine Keener) who recounts her life from childhood through her own journey as a mother. She experiences fierce blizzards, moments of deadly peril, seasons of perpetual summer sunshine, successful hunting expeditions, and lean times of hunger and want. All of this is narrated through a heavily anthropomorphized script, which imbues her life with way too much amateur psychology. Are we supposed to take it seriously when a newly independent adult bear starts reminiscing about her mother thusly, “I wasn’t really alone. She was with me. She was a part of every experience. Every decision. Every journey. A part of the bear I had become.” We don’t know how animals perceive our world, but I think we can be certain that the don’t see it through a filter of syrupy greeting card messages.

If you can overlook the psychobabble – and your kids certainly will – the film can still disturb young viewers. More than most other creatures, polar bears are negatively affected by climate change. In this film, the protagonist and her family are threatened not only by predatory males and the natural hazards of living in a harsh climate but by an environment that is literally melting beneath their feet. Children who are old enough to understand climate change could be motivated towards positive change or preoccupied by anxiety for the planet. Younger children might be frightened by some of the hunting scenes (although they are sanitized), and possibly by one scene where polar bears eat a dead whale and lift their faces, smeared with blood and whale viscera, towards the camera. Frankly, Polar Bear may be better suited as a classroom movie than as a choice for family movie night – but that depends on your kids’ appetite for nature films.

Concerns aside, Polar Bear maintains Disneynature’s standards for stellar cinematography. It’s difficult to discuss the filming without superlatives – stunning, amazing, jaw-dropping – all of which describe the otherworldly vistas the filmmakers found in Norway as they followed the bears through their own lethally beautifully corner of the planet. This story will leave you and your children marveling at the wonders of the earth and rooting for the survival of these incredible ice bears.