Coco Plot Summary
Coco is a charmingly colourful animated musical film by Pixar, distributed by Disney. It follows the journey of a 12 year old boy Miguel into the land of the dead to find his great-great-grandfather and take his blessings to return to the human world without sacrificing his music.
Miguel comes from a family of shoemakers, started by his great-great-grandmother Imelda. Imelda finds herself raising her daughter alone when her husband, a budding musician, leaves his family to play for the world. Since then, Imelda has forbidden her family to venture into music which the family has honoured several years after her death.
How does Miguel cross over to the world of the dead?
Miguel is a 12 year old boy who is fascinated with music. He worships one of the most revered musicians in Mexico, Ernesto de la Cruz. But due to Imelda, the entire family forbids any association with music because Coco’s (Miguel’s great-grandmother) father left her and Imelda to pursue his music.
However, Miguel wants to become a musician and after a fallout with his family, believing de la Cruz is his grandfather, he runs over to the celebrations of the day of the dead to perform there. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a guitar and nobody is willing to lend theirs to Miguel.
Inspired by de la Cruz’s motto “Seize your moment”, Miguel breaks into de la Cruz’s resting place and steals his guitar. The moment he steals the guitar, Miguel becomes a human spirit, is found by her dead family members and crosses over to the world of the dead to meet Mama Imelda.
Why does Miguel refuse Imelda’s blessing?
Imelda has a condition on giving Miguel her blessings. She wants Miguel to never pursue music again. At first Miguel accepts since if he remains in the land of the dead till morning, he will eventually die. But once, he turns back into a human, he grabs onto de la Cruz’s guitar and finds himself in the land of the dead yet again.
He realises that if he takes Imelda’s blessing, he will never be able to pursue music and so, he decides to find de la Cruz and get his blessings, believing him to be his great-great-grandfather.
What is the twist ending of Coco?
Soon after he runs away from Imelda and his family members, Miguel comes across a homeless trickster named Hector. Hector has been trying to leave the land of the dead so that he can put his photograph on his family’s ofrenda, avoid being forgotten and protect himself from the final death. Hector helps Miguel to enter a talent competition as a way to get him to de la Cruz but Miguel’s family tracks him down leading to Miguel fleeing from the competition.
Miguel manages to sneak into de la Cruz’s party and finds out that Hector is his real great-great-grandfather who was murdered by de la Cruz. He also discovers that Hector had written and composed all of de la Cruz’s songs and de la Cruz had merely stolen them.
Why did Hector leave Coco?
Hector was on a trip with de la Cruz to perform their music in various places but soon he grew homesick and decided to leave. De la Cruz tried to stop him but Hector wanted to go back to his family. Sensing that Hector will not comply, de la Cruz poisons Hector who dies in the streets. Hector did not leave Coco. Imelda and Coco were unaware of Hector’s death and assumed that he had left them.
Why couldn’t Miguel just remember Hector?
To escape the final death, which is when a dead ancestor does not have any family who remembers them in the land of the living and so they simple vanish from existence, Hector needed a family member to remember him. Since apart from Imelda, only Coco remembered him, he was slowly dying as Coco’s memory of her father was fading.
Miguel, even though his living relative, couldn’t save Hector by remembering him because he met Hector in the land of the dead. Miguel needs to remember Hector in the land of the living along with Hector’s photo on the family’s ofrenda for him to survive in the other world.
What happened to Hector at the end of Coco?
Miguel receives his great-great-grandparents’ blessing and rushes to make Coco remember Hector, since Hector’s only photograph was lost in the land of the dead. He plays ‘Remember Me’ which Hector wrote for Coco and which is also de la Cruz’s most renowned song amidst his family’s protests.
Coco regains her spirit on listening to the song and shows them Hector’s tore up picture that she had saved. The family restores Hector’s photograph on the ofrenda and Hector survives! The next year, Hector is able to pass the bridge connecting the land of the living and the dead with his entire family, along with Coco.
What happened to de la Cruz?
While Miguel and his family fought de la Cruz to get Hector’s only picture back, de la Cruz’s real personality is revealed to the audience who came to see his performance in the land of the dead. He soon loses support.
In the real world, Miguel’s family is able to convey the truth about Hector’s death to the world along with the proof which were Hector’s letters to Coco containing the lyrics to all his songs. De la Cruz is termed a murderer while Hector is recognised as the beloved musician of Mexico.