Tear Jerker / Anastasia

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

The animated film

"And my Anastasia, my beloved grandchild... I never saw her again."

• Marie and Anastasia trying to get on the train to escape the country. There are tears in Anastasia's eyes when she tries to catch up with the train and Marie grabs onto her granddaughter's hand, saying, "Take my hand! Hold onto my hand!" and Anastasia cries, "Don't let go!" However, they both lose their grip and Anastasia falls to the platform, hitting her head and getting knocked out cold, all while Marie desperately shouts her granddaughter's name and all the passengers are holding her back from jumping off the train to get to her.
• Anastasia's dance with the Czar, her father, during the "Once Upon a December" sequence. No matter what opinion you have about Czar Nicholas II, the flashbacks and visions involving the family, Alexandra (the mother), the older sisters (Tatiana, Olga, and Maria), and the little brother (Alexei), strikes as heartwrenching considering what happened to the family in reality.
  • Another moment is when her sisters come out of the painting and exchange gestures of affection, with one even putting a strand of pearls around her neck. Anastasia later recalls how Olga teased her for a drawing the former made, but in these few moments her sisters, either as ghosts or as memories, are giving her their blessing for surviving.
  • Alexei never approaches his sister during the Disney Acid Sequence; he stands with his mother and watches solemnly. The Reality Subtext is even sadder: Alexei suffered from hemophilia and as the only male heir was hypnotized by Rasputin to keep the bleeding under check.
  • Blink and you'll miss it but Vlad is there as well, in the background when her dress changes, looking as jolly as ever and probably a little drunk. He's the only character from this entire sequence who isn't either dead or traumatised and it's oddly heartbreaking that he goes along with the con and doesn't recognise Anastasia until Dimitri tells him at the ballet.
  • It becomes even more heartwrenching when you stop and realize how pointless their deaths were in the context of the film. Anya's family was murdered and stolen from her by an evil asshole who literally sold his soul to the devil because he felt slighted by Nicholas.
  • Watching Anya dance with her late father's ghost gets harder when you remember that our first introduction to Anastasia is her as a cheeky and enthusiastic 8 year old girl playfully dancing with her father during the anniversary ball at the beginning of the film and shouting "Oh, Papa!" when he picks her up and twirls her around. Just before the song starts, Anastasia blows some dust off of a plate...and sees the memory of her being twirled by her father. It fades away and she brushes it off, putting the plate back down.
• The nightmare on the ship is not just full of Nightmare Fuel. First, Alexei approaches Anastasia with a large smile and calls out to her to follow him to where their sisters and father are jumping into a swimming pool. Alexei shows off his Cheerful Child side by jumping in and losing his hat. It shows what life might have been like for Anastasia if her family had managed to go into hiding and survive so that she could have grown up with her sisters and little brother. This makes the transition of her father turning into a demon much harder to take.
• Dimitri's reaction when he realizes Anya's true identity. The girl he's fallen in love with and thought was his equal is the real Grand Duchess. And they can't be together because he's a former servant and is now unworthy of her.
  • Perfectly shown in his defeated conversation with Vlad.
    Vlad: That means Anya has found her family! And you—
    Dimitri: Will walk out of her life forever.
    Vlad: But—
    Dimitri: Princesses don't marry kitchen boys.
• Later scenes add to this: Him being forced to bow to her, refusing the money, and his expression when he sees Pooka holding her crown. No one's telling Dimitri he's not good enough for Anya - he just knows he is. The instinctive values here can't be emphasized enough. He was a servant at the beginning who admired the Princess but was never noticed. He obviously spent years trying to move past that, and now, because of a difference in birth, Anya is unreachable again. They're still the same people, she's still the same girl he's insulted and saved and comforted, but suddenly that's it, he's just as inferior to her as when they were children. And he can't do anything about it.
  • Then there's Dimitri's part in "Paris holds the Key":
    Dimitri: Paris holds the key to her past...
    Yes Princess, I've found you at last.
    No more pretend; you'll be gone, that's the end...
• Any scene with the Dowager Empress Marie. Take out the whole revolution and royalty thing and all you have is an old woman who watched her son and grandchildren be murdered.
  • Made even worse by the fact that in real life, she was fairly well-liked as Empress, and not even Russian. Also in real life, she refused to believe that Nicholas died and that he was in hiding with her grandchildren.
  • And just to add more salt into the wound, Marie had to deal with a bunch of impostors claiming they were her granddaughter and con artists wanting to get their hands on the reward money she was offering. By the time Anya arrives in Paris, Marie bitterly says that her heart can't take it anymore and has all but given up on any hope of being reunited with her only surviving grandchild. She even places Anastasia's picture face down at the end of the scene, as if to say her granddaughter is dead.
• When Dimitri brings Anya to meet Marie at the ballet, the door doesn't close all the way. This leads to Anya overhearing the horrible truth about Dimitri; that he's a conman and has been on the search for an Anastasia lookalike in order to get the reward. She looks like a kicked puppy and is waiting with vitriolic words when he's thrown out of Marie's private box, not even caring to listen to Dimitri's insistences of who she really is.

  Anya: That was all a lie, wasn't it?
  Dimitri: No, no, no, no...
  Anya: You used me?! I was just part of your con to get her money?!
  Dimitri: No! No, no, no...look, it may have started out that way but things are different now. Because you really are Anastasia! You are...
  Anya: Stop it! From the very beginning you lied! And I not only believed you, I actually...(groans in disgust)
  Dimitri: Anya, please! When you spoke of the hidden door of the wall opening and the little boy. (grabs her hand) Listen to me, that was...
  Anya: (yanks hand away) NO! I don't want to hear about anything that I said I remembered! You just leave me alone! (as Dimitri grabs her arm, she gives him a vicious slap across the face, which makes him let go and storms off)
  Dimitri: (stopped by several people) Anya! Please! You have to know the truth!

• The reunion between Anastasia and her grandmother Marie, namely when Marie examines the locket, realizes it's the one she gave Anastasia, and provides the music box. Her voice gains hope, slowly, as she sings the lullaby with her grown-up granddaughter. Also doubles as a Heartwarming Moment.
  • Just before Marie enters, Anya is seen packing, no doubt intending to strike out on her own and try to find her family. As she packs, she finds the rose given to her during "Paris Holds The Key To Your Heart". She looks at it, wistful, before chucking it into a nearby wastepaper basket and continues packing, saying in response to Marie's knock "Go away, Dimitri..."
  • During the interaction, she's confronted by Marie, who wants to know who Anya is and what she wants. Anya tearfully tells her "I just want to know who I am. Whether or not I belong to a family. Your family." Marie's response is a dismissive "You're a very good actress. Best yet, in fact. But...I've had enough." As she turns to leave, Anya catches a whiff of Marie's peppermint oil, which triggers a memory...
  • In the same scene, when Marie first sees Anya’s necklace, she says, in a choked voice, “it was our secret” then quickly states “Anastasia’s and mine”, making it seem as though she is accepting Anya really is her granddaughter at this point, but she cannot quite allow herself to believe it yet after having been disappointed so many times before.
  • "Oh Anastasia (voice cracking)...my Anastasia!"
• The mere fact that Anastasia had to realize her parents and siblings are all dead as she regained her memories. She wanted to find them so badly and risked her life and safety to get answers due to her amnesia, only to find that most of them are dead and she and her grandmother were the only ones who survived.
• As mentioned below in the folder for the stage version, the real Dowager Empress Marie died in 1928, only a year after the events of the film. If this holds true for the fictionalized Marie too, then the film's ending becomes all the more bittersweet: even though Anya's letter at the end promises that she and her grandmother will still keep in touch and see each other again soon, it won't be long before Marie's death parts them again.
• The film itself could be this for anyone familiar with what actually happened to Anastasia. To put it simply, Animated Anastasia lived happily ever after with Dimitri while her Real Life counterpart (along with most of the Russian royal family) was killed at the age of 17. Even her other real-life inspiration, Anna Anderson, was ultimately proven to be an impostor and spent a large amount of her life institutionalized over her mental health before dying of pneumonia.

The stage version

• Anya frequently flinches at any sound resembling gunshots. At one point, she recalls how she pressed her younger brother to her chest.
• The showdown between Gleb and Anastasia, involving him pointing the gun at her... before promptly aiming it at himself.
  Anastasia: Do it! And I will be with my parents and my brother and sisters on that cellar in Yekaterinburg all over again!
• With Lily's help, Anastasia finally gets to meet her grandmother... but the Dowager Empress has met so many impostors that she won't even look at her. Then the Dowager Empress angrily says that Anastasia is after money, like the others.
  Dimitry: She only wants what's rightfully hers! Your recognition and your loving embrace! Try to imagine her life since her parents, sisters, little brother were murdered!
  Dowager Empress: I do not need reminding of what happened to my family. I lost everything I loved that day!
  Dimitry: So did she.
• In this version, Dmitry is not a former servant, but a street orphan who once shared a moment with young Anastasia during a parade. As adults, he recalls this to Anya, who then remembers it as well. There's a moment where they are both elated, and they nearly kiss. Then Dmitry stops himself and kneels to her instead.
  Dmitry: Your Highness.
• "Close the Door", where the Dowager Empress gives up hope that Anastasia could be alive.
  In my heart, I know
  You're a lie that I've waited for
  Tell them all to go
  Tell them all "No more!"
  Tell them I close the door
  • Also depending on the version, there may be a little Anastasia waiting just behind her in the doorway, and when she says she gives up, little Anastasia will look down sadly and walk away. What makes it even sadder is that the Dowager Empress doesn't even turn around to acknowledge her.
• Near the end, Anya and her grandmother finally meet.
  Dowager Empress: If you're not Anastasia, it will kill me as surely as they killed my family in that cellar. I can't take any more! Do you know what it means to lose everything, young woman? My son, his children, everything I loved and held dear with all my heart, all lost and gone in one terrible moment, and for what?
• In the Prologue, the Dowager Empress receiving the news that her son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren have all been murdered.
  Dowager Empress: All of them?
• "Stay, I Pray You": the Russians about to board the train to Paris bidding farewell to their homeland forever, saying goodbye to everything they had ever known.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: Count Ipolitov led the ensemble in saying goodbye. He never got to leave Russia, as he was dragged off the train and shot after the very next song.
• The Dowager Empress died in 1928, aged 80. The musical's events take place in 1927. It's either the good kind of tearjerker (she got to see Anastasia before she died) or the bad (she waited and searched for ten years only to die shortly after she was reunited with her favorite granddaughter).

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