Netflix’s My Father’s Dragon turns a bizarre book into a gorgeous movie

This review was published to coincide with the film’s premiere at the 2022 BFI London Film Festival. my dad dragon will debut on Netflix in November.

my dad dragon is one of those classic children’s books that seems to come straight out of the subconscious. For a child, it will probably find it comforting and full of wonder, but reading it as an adult, like I did recently, to my five-year-old after a friend gave me a copy, can be overwhelming. (In fact, my kids thought it was weird, too.) It is the story of a boy who runs away to Rescue the candy-striped young dragons they enslaved.

Ireland’s great studio, Cartoon Saloon (song of the sea, wolf walker), which retains its top-level plot summary, several characters, and the indelible design of Boris the Dragon (illustrated by the author’s stepmother, Ruth Chrisman Gannett). , with blue and yellow stripes, pendulous ears and small golden wings. Apart from that, the movie discards pretty much everything else. Directed by Nora Toomey (breadwinner of the family, Secret of Kells) and screenwriter Meg LeFauve (Pixar’s inside out) reconstructed the fragmentary, surreal little fable of the Gannetts into something like a conventionally structured children’s film, but also more evocative and sympathetic. It’s a nice movie.

In this version, Elmer (Jacob Tremblay), a boy named Elmer (Jacob Tremblay), understands that he will be the father of an unseen elderly narrator (Mary Kay Place), but is a single mother and a small child. A happy life in town (Golshifteh Farahani) runs a thriving neighborhood shop that caters to everyone’s needs. Then comes the difficult times. (Twomey articulates the transition by dropping bright tangerines from overflowing crates onto the floor, where they roll and evaporate. It’s a wonderfully understated and eloquent gesture.) move to a dilapidated boarding house. He struggles to adapt to their rootless and poor new situation. After getting rid of a stray cat that Elmer’s mother picked up, Elmer runs after it deep into the city. Passing through a narrow gap, a talking cat (Woopy he purrs Goldberg’s mischief) emerges into a fantastical new reality, riding on the back of an excited baby whale and ushering you on an adventure.

This new frame grounds the story in a psychological reality that the book never had, and also pays tribute to its mid-century American origins—Twomey and LeFauve’s expansive ideas don’t stop there. In this book, the wild island animals are conceited and lazy, and when a dragon falls from the sky, they capture it to serve as his taxi, flying him across a river he cannot bother to swim across. Or walk around. The film’s Wild Island is a more complex, metaphorical, and morally ambiguous place.

This dome-shaped Forbidden Island is constantly sinking into the sea. The animal, desperate for survival, has captured Boris (Gaten Matarazzo). for he possesses enough strength to lift an entire continent out of the water when harnessed to the rocks of the island itself. The more it pulls, the more it sinks in, but Saiwa the gorilla (Ian McShane) is an authoritative, caring, blindfolded animal leader that’s refreshing from other ideas. Mysteries such as the gaping cavern of bright white fire at the top of the island, the legend of the all-knowing turtle somewhere in its heart, and the crude hieroglyph of the fire-breathing “back dragon” Boris covets. There is also Dragons and islands seem to have something to do with each other, but what?

Unlike books that save the boy-dragon encounter for last, Twomey and LeFauve waste no time in bringing the two together. Elmer and Boris explore the island together, meeting a caged rhinoceros with a baby, a campy crocodile and its brood, a savage yet adorable roly-poly tiger, and a pack of angry round hamsters. The animals are played with laughter and wistfulness by a cast of stars including treasures such as Dianne Wiest, Judy Greer, Chris O’Dowd and Alan Cumming. McShane’s gorgeous, rich voice is full of anger and worry, stealing the scene as a gorilla with the weight of an entire island on his shoulders.

Image: Netflix

Tremblay and Matarazzo forge an intimate relationship as a witty, serious boy and a stupid, hopeful dragon. As is often the case in stories like this, the child and his fantastic companion are two sides of the same coin: maturity and immaturity, closed mind and open mind, ego and id. Naturally, they help each other overcome their fears, embrace their new reality, and move forward. But it’s still inspiring, especially in the context of Elmer’s “real” life in the city and running away from it. It is a social allegory of an island animal drowning because it cannot figure out how to save itself and is trying to shift the burden onto someone else.

Fans of cartoon saloons, needless to say, are for beginners. my dad dragon Is beautiful. This is a 2D animation drawn in an economical yet expressive style. It has a cleaner, decidedly less hand-painted look than the untamed one. wolf walkerbut Twomey’s keen sense of scale and her simple yet striking composition create a powerful emotional geography for the story and a stunningly epic and devastating canvas for the action. A director and studio at the forefront of their craft, they pride themselves on turning beloved classics into something bigger and deeper.

my dad dragon Debuts on Netflix on November 11th.