Orion And The Dark Review – 'Bursting with ideas and challenging concepts' – Empire

Charlie Kaufman’s final movie, I’m Considering Of Ending Issues, ended with a unadorned aged janitor stalking the corridors of a college whereas a maggot-infested pig waffled on about physics. It’s protected to say his newest, a family-friendly animation from the makers of The Boss Child, isn’t that.

And but, that is nonetheless recognisably A Charlie Kaufman Movie. He serves solely as screenwriter — first-timer Sean Charmatz has the directing reins — however Kaufman’s hallmarks may be seen inside minutes. Our hero Orion (voiced by Jacob Tremblay as a toddler and Colin Hanks as an grownup) is a sometimes anxious Kaufman protagonist, outlined by a litany of fears: he’s petrified of bees, canine, the ocean, “murderous gutter clowns”, and, most of all, the darkish.

As within the charming kids’s ebook of the identical title, by British writer and illustrator Emma Yarlett, on which the movie relies, Orion then meets a ghostly personification of darkness, identified merely as ‘Darkish’ (voiced by a garrulous Paul Walter Hauser), and learns to confront his fears. Impressively, although, there’s extra right here than simply that one apparent lesson — one thing Kaufman’s script itself acknowledges. Yarlett’s ebook ran to simply 40 pages, geared toward preschool-age youngsters; this movie takes these preliminary concepts and runs with them, introducing a wild meta framing machine that examines, amongst different issues, the very act of storytelling.

There are tons of daring swings right here, and credit score should go to DreamWorks Animation, who’ve proven a willingness to interrupt the mould earlier than (see additionally: The Unhealthy Guys, Puss In Boots: The Final Want). Kaufman’s script contains jokes and references that may fly over the heads of five-year-olds: Orion may be seen at one level studying a ebook entitled ‘Nihilism Vs Existentialism For Youngsters’; there’s a cheeky rib of different animation studios and their fondness for “dance events”; there’s, improbably, a intellectual gag about David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.

Charmatz’s path retains issues inside Dreamworks’s CG home type, however brings a scruffy, scrappy method, reflecting the mindset of its hero, in a fashion much like The Mitchells Vs The Machines: Orion’s hand-drawn scrapbook sketches, which doc his many fears, bleed pleasingly into the body. Conceptually, there’s a contact of Pixar’s Inside Out to all of it, in the best way it anthropomorphises summary concepts (if not fairly as efficiently) — ‘Sleep’, ‘Insomnia’ and ‘Unexplained Noises’ are all vibrant supporting characters right here.

However to its bones, it is a Kaufman joint, and whereas it has an uncommon sweetness — there’s a straightforwardly healthful father-daughter relationship — it is stuffed with existential dread, massive concepts, and a powerful resistance to something too neat, too Hollywood. {That a} main studio has allowed somebody like him into the protected enclave of kiddie movies needs to be celebrated; kids must be uncovered to extra of his darkish supplies.