'Orion and the Dark' movie review: A magical watch

Unlike the usual idea of light being associated with positivity, Kaufman makes a bad guy out of it. The film goes beyond just Orion overcoming his fears, and addresses the importance of darkness, by making Dark as human as possible.

A still from Netflix’s latest animated feature, Orion and the Dark.

Five minutes into Netflix’s latest animated feature, Orion and the Dark, and Kamal Haasan’s titular character from the 2000 Tamil film, Thenali, comes to mind. Orion (Jacob Tremblay), an elementary school kid, delivers a monologue listing his fears, but unlike Thenali, Orion has no traumatic past causing the fears. He’s just a little kid, who’s afraid of everything, but most of all, the dark. The feature, adapted from Emma Yarlett’s children’s book of the same name, goes on to introduce Dark (Paul Walter Hauser), who attempts to convince Orion that there’s no reason to be afraid of him.

While the book is based on this premise alone, Charlie Kaufman of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind-fame, develops a whole new world around the one-liner. Kaufman, along with first-time filmmaker Sean Charmatz, makes the film meta-fiction by breaking the fourth wall. At a crucial point in the story, we come to know that Orion is narrating the story to his daughter Hypatia. Further exploration of this revelation makes for an amusingly surreal conclusion. The film also offers a lot on the concepts of darkness and light.

Unlike the usual idea of light being associated with positivity, Kaufman makes a bad guy out of it. The film goes beyond just Orion overcoming his fears, and addresses the importance of darkness, by making Dark as human as possible. We also get introduced to ‘night entities’ like Sleep, Quiet, Sweet Dreams, Unexplained Noises and Insomnia, which maintain the balance during the night. The physical characterisation of these characters is well thought-out and brilliantly animated. For example, Sweet Dreams (a calm Angela Bassett) has a colourful and serene persona, because she resembles all things sweet. Insomnia (Nat Faxon), on the other hand, has wings and is always restless because it’s his job to jolt people awake.

First look poster of 'Orion and the Dark'

The visual game of Orion and the Dark is par excellence, like any other Dreamworks animation. We are transcended into the world of night and darkness, as we see stars and fireflies, and as Dark himself says, “the wrinkles on actors’ faces”. The film faces a few lags here and there, when it suddenly introduces more magic realism towards the end of the film. But, Kaufman ensures that the loose ends are all tied up eventually.

Director: Sean Charmatz

Genre: Animation

Platform: Netflix

Language: English

Rating: 3/5 stars