Movie Review: Sketch

 

Michael's Movie Grade: A-

A wonderful family friendly fantasy movie. 

This film has a wonderfully creative premise. After losing her mom, a little girl is plagued with dark thoughts as she works out her grief. Following advice from the school therapist, she draws out these dark thoughts in her notebook to help let them out in a healthy way. She draws these dark thoughts in the form of killer monsters. However, when her drawings come to life she teams with her brother and a kid, she doesn't get along with to stop her own creations. 

Luckily this movie lives up to its very creative premise. Though this is a family movie, it is not afraid to dive into the darker aspects of the story. This film delves quite deeply into the grief the main character is feeling over the loss of her mom. As she is dealing with dark thoughts that mostly revolve around death, the filmmakers never tone down these dark thoughts. In fact, this film goes as far with these aspects as it can while still receiving a PG rating (when PG has essentiality become another G-rating, it is rare to find a PG movie that actually feels PG). Yet as dark as her drawings get, they always feel as if they came from a kid's imagination. Not toning down the darkness of her thoughts doesn't take away from her likability. Rather it makes her feel more real and nuanced than many other child characters in movies. The filmmakers also deal with this part of the story in a very mature and intelligent way, giving us a lesson about letting our feelings out in non-harmful ways rather than keeping them in her mind. It also has the nuance of letting us know that while we shouldn't be ashamed of our darker thoughts, we also shouldn't let them take the place of our happy thoughts. This is not only a needed lesson for kids but for adults as well. Though dealing with the loss of a parent is a typical story point for family movies, this is one of the most heartfelt and realistic examples I have seen.

The monsters are also a lot of fun. They are incredibly creative in a way that feels like they were created by an imaginative child. The designs and ideas behind these monsters are wonderful. Meanwhile, there is just the right amount of scariness to them. They are scary enough to feel threatening and give parts of the film a fun eerie vibe. Yet they are not too scary to make this inappropriate for kids or give kids nightmares. 

As well as the darker scenes and the monsters, this movie keeps a sense of humor throughout. While not every joke lands, the ones that do are actually really funny. 

It is amazing to think that this is director/writer Seth Worley's first feature film. I am looking forward to what he does in the future.