Anastasia (1997)

Anastasia is a 1997 American animated musical film produced and directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman. It was the first feature film to be released by Fox Animation Studios. The idea for the film originates from Fox's 1956 live-action film version of the same name. The plot is loosely based on an urban legend which claimed that Anastasia, the youngest daughter of the last monarch of Imperial Russia, in fact survived the execution of her family, and thus takes various liberties with historical fact.

In 1916, Tsar Nicholas II hosts a ball at the Catherine Palace to celebrate the Romanov tricentennial. At the ball, his mother, the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna (Angela Lansbury), gives the eight-year-old Grand Duchess Anastasia (Kirsten Dunst) a music box and a necklace reading "Together in Paris" to ease her favorite granddaughter's loneliness while Marie is away in Paris. The ball is suddenly interrupted by the arrival of Grigori Rasputin (Christopher Lloyd), a power-mad sorcerer who was banished from the palace by the Tsar. Rasputin sells his soul in order to cast a curse on the Imperial family that sparks a revolution as revenge. The Romanovs are forced to flee from the palace for their lives, but only Marie and Anastasia are able to escape the siege alive thanks to a young servant boy named Dimitri, who shows them a secret passageway in Anastasia's room. Rasputin's minion Bartok (Hank Azaria) immediately alerts him to Anastasia's escape, and Rasputin confronts Marie and Anastasia on their way to the train station, only to fall through the ice and drown. At the train station, however, Anastasia fails to board the moving train and becomes separated from Marie after she falls and hits her head on the railroad. In 1926, Russia is under communist rule and the tsar is dead. Marie is offering a monetary reward for the safe return of her granddaughter. Dimitri (John Cusack), now a con man, and his partner Vladimir (Kelsey Grammer) are searching for an Anastasia lookalike to present to Marie so that they can collect the reward and end their financial troubles. Elsewhere, the eighteen-year-old Anastasia (Meg Ryan), now under the name Anya, is suffering from amnesia because of her head injury ten years prior. Anya turns down a fish factory job in favor of going to St. Petersburg after her necklace inspires her to seek out her family in Paris. Accompanied by a stray puppy named Pooka, she encounters Dimitri and Vladimir, who are impressed by her resemblance to the Grand Duchess and recruit her as their unwitting "fake" Anastasia. Bartok realizes that the two con men's "fake" Anastasia is, in fact, the real Anastasia when Rasputin's dormant reliquary (which contains his soul) is revived. The reliquary hauls Bartok to limbo, where Rasputin has existed as a living corpse for the past ten years, unable to truly die since his curse is unfulfilled. When Bartok returns the reliquary to Rasputin, Rasputin's powers are restored, and he sends out his demonic minions from within the reliquary to kill Anastasia. After two narrow escapes from Rasputin's minions, Anya, Dimitri, and Vladimir arrive in Paris to present Anya as Anastasia to Marie. Marie, however, has recently called off the search for Anastasia. Nonetheless, Sophie, Marie's first cousin and lady-in-waiting, agrees to interview Anya as a favor to Vladimir. When Anya dimly recalls Dimitri opening the secret passageway, Dimitri realizes that he and Vladimir have found the missing Grand Duchess. Sophie then arranges for Anya to meet Marie after the Russian Ballet, but Marie continues to stand firm on her decision until Dimitri convinces her to see Anya after presenting her with the music box that Anastasia had left behind during the siege of the palace. Marie remains guarded upon meeting Anya until Anya begins to remember personal childhood moments, and when Anya uses her necklace to wind the music box and recites the lullaby, the two women realize the truth and are reunited at long last. Marie rewards Dimitri with ten million rubles and her gratitude. Dimitri, however, refuses the money and makes preparations to return to Soviet Russia because even though he loves Anastasia, his social class, as well as his shame at having initially conned her, forces him to part ways with the Grand Duchess. Later, at a celebration being held in Anastasia's honour, Marie informs Anastasia of Dimitri's actions, and promises her granddaughter that they will always have each other even if Anastasia chooses a life with Dimitri. When Pooka suddenly bounds for the garden maze, Anastasia runs after him and is trapped by Rasputin, who tries to kill her in a battle on the Pont Alexandre III. Dimitri returns to save her, but is injured and knocked unconscious. In the end, Anastasia manages to destroy Rasputin's reliquary by crushing it under her foot. This releases the minions Rasputin sold his soul for, and they promptly reduce his body to dust. Afterwards, Dimitri and Anastasia reconcile and send a farewell letter to Marie and Sophie. The newly eloped couple promises Marie and Sophie that they will see them again in Paris, and Anastasia and Dimitri sail away on a boat with Pooka. Meanwhile, Bartok also finds true love with a female bat and shares a passionate kiss with her.