Trouble is, while her family show off their gifts, Mirabel aches with the sadness that she doesn’t have a magical bone in her body.

But wait! One fateful day, the villa shakes on its foundations, ominous cracks tear across the walls and Mirabel’s enchanted clan start to feel a little less abracadabra. It turns out the candle that created the family’s magic all those centuries ago is now burning out, and unless someone can find a way to restore the spell, the magical Madrigals will be – shudder – ordinary.

Who are the biggest characters in Disney’s Encanto?

They might start life on an artist’s sketch pad, but the Mouse House has a deserved reputation for creating three-dimensional characters that burst off the screen.

Disney’s Encanto is no exception, giving us a fistful of new heroes (yay!) and villains (hiss!) who look set to rub shoulders with Simba, Elsa, Genie, Cruella and the rest of the A-list.

If you’ve ever felt sidelined or misunderstood, you’ll strike up an immediate bond with Mirabel.

In a family of high-flyers, she’s the loveable klutz orever in the shadow of older sisters Isabela (so glamorous that flowers bloom in her presence) and Luisa (whose fabled strength lets her flip bridges with a fingertip).

Even Mirabel’s cousins put her in the shade, with Dolores blessed with enhanced hearing, Camilo able to shape-shift at will, and Antonio happily communicating with the menagerie of anteaters, leopards and toucans that roam the magical villa.

Notable as Disney’s first feature-length animated musical set in Latin America, directors Byron Howard and Jared Bush (Zootopia), plus screenwriter Charise Castro Smith, made a point of putting diversity up there on the screen.

“It was a really intentional choice from the very beginning,” Smith told ScreenRant. “We wanted a family that was diverse and representative, in terms of personality and relationships, but also in terms of their ethnicity and how they looked and how they presented in the world. We made very specific and mindful choices about representing the many cultures that are within Colombia.”

Who’s in the voice cast of Disney’s Encanto?

We’d give anything to be a fly on the wall of the Disney vocal booth. Of course, in years gone by, you’d have seen Tom Hanks holler it up as Woody and Robin Williams freestyling to the outer limits as Genie.

Likewise, in 2021, Disney’s Encanto cast left it all in the booth with their zinging performances (not bad considering the pandemic forced some cast members to record their parts remotely).

So far, you’ll know Stephanie Beatriz best as the tough Detective Rosa Diaz in Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Carla from In The Heights. Now, leading Disney’s Encanto cast as Mirabel, the Colombian-Bolivian actress shows a softer side playing a heroine she describes as “a really funny, loving character who also deeply yearns for something more”.

Elsewhere in this ensemble cast, former Orange Is The New Black jailbird Diane Guerrero is note-perfect as the pampered Isabela: a sibling so self-absorbed she doesn’t even notice when she slaps you with her ponytail.

Carlito’s Way alumnus John Leguizamo brings gravitas to Bruno, the excluded Uncle whose ability to tell the future might come in handy.

Meanwhile, Jessica Darrow told Ocean Drive that she loved flexing her vocal cords as the mighty Luisa.

“I am now my own character in a Disney film,” says the Cuban-American actress, previously best-known for Feast Of Seven Fishes. “So that’s one major thing crossed off my bucket list.”

What are the songs like in Disney’s Encanto?

The name Lin-Manuel Miranda holds a magic of its own. Most likely, you’ll know the multi-award-winning New York composer and actor for the bullet-belt flows in his own Broadway musicals Hamilton and In The Heights (which also became a hit film this year).

But Miranda’s collaboration with Disney goes back years, too, with highlights including the Oscar-nominated How Far I’ll Go for 2016’s Moana.

When it comes to the soundtrack for Disney’s Encanto, the keyword is ‘joy’. Far more than a pastiche, Miranda’s total immersion in Latin American culture – the result of a road trip through Colombia – allowed him to meld the authentic rhythms, motifs and timbres into songs that ensure your ODEON armrests will get a workout during Disney’s Encanto.

“I'd say that Lin has this amazing gift to be able to sum up experiences and character in a way that is innovative and exciting and always changing over the course of the story,” Bush told SlashFilm.

“I think that he challenges himself constantly.”

“Mirabel’s journey is going outside of herself,” screenwriter Charise Castro Smith told IndieWire, “taking a risk in knowing each of her family members a little more deeply and understanding them in a different way from their presentational roles.

Hopefully, this movie will help build re-connections between family members.”

See Disney's Encanto at ODEON from 24 November