“Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken,” a new animated coming-of-age story from Dreamworks, now playing in theatres, flips the usual idea of the tentacled sea creature from fearsome to heroic.
The Kraken-out-of-water tale isn’t a franchise—although it may be the beginning of one—but it does owe a debt to recent Pixar films “Turning Red” and “Luca,” movies about the transformation of body and expectations.
Years after leaving the sea to live on land and raise their family, ocean creatures Agatha (Toni Collette) and Peter Gillman (Colman Domingo) are secretive about their past. “We’re from Canada,” they say to explain away their blue skin, gills and lack of spines.
Fifteen-year-old daughter Ruby (Lana Condor) goes along with the lie, and admits to “barely pulling off this human thing.” At school, she feels different and has a hard time fitting in outside of her squad, a small group of BFFs.
“I just want to be Ruby Gillman, normal teenager,” she says.
Despite her mother’s strict rule of never going near the water, days before the prom, when her high school, skater-boy crush Connor (Jaboukie Young-White) almost drowns, Ruby dives into the ocean to rescue him. Contact with salt water releases out her true self, a giant luminescent, kraken. “I’m already a little weird,” she says, “but I can’t hide this.”
In short order Ruby learns of her heritage, and that her grandmother, Grandmahmah (Jane Fonda) is a warrior queen, the Ultimate Lordess of and ruler of the Seven Seas, and charged with keeping the undersea world safe from the main maritime threat—evil mermaids.
“But people love mermaids,” says Ruby.
“Of course they do,” says Grandmahmah. “People are stupid.”
Grandmahmah wants Ruby to become her successor and possibly settle an age-old score.
Themes of self-acceptance, family love and overcoming insecurity are common in films for kids and young adults, and “Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken” is no different. But what it lacks in originality—“Turning Red” got to the transformation as a metaphor for coming out of your shell first—it makes up for with good humor, fun voice work, particularly from Jane Fonda and Annie Murphy as a mermaid, and an engaging lead character.
Ruby is a sweet-natured math nerd wrapped up in a blanket of insecurity. As she attempts to navigate high school and her newfound kraken alter-ego, she never loses the teen aura that makes her so relatable. She may be able to morph into a giant, but the biggest things in her life remain her family and friends. It’s heartfelt, and somehow, not as sappy as it sounds.
“Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken” may not break new ground, or part the oceans, but it tells its story with panache, finding a way to merge a kid-friendly story with some decidedly adult jokes.
“Strange World,” the new animated film from Walt Disney, starring the voices of Jake Gyllenhaal and Gabrielle Union, is a colorful ode to making the world a better place.
The story centers on the Clades, led by intrepid explorer Jaeger (voice of Dennis Quaid). The Clade clan is devoted to finding a way out of Avalonia, their home and small nation, tucked away between unpassable mountains.
On one of their journeys through the snow-capped mountains—“Exploration is ‘snow’ joke,” Jaeger snorts as he leads the crew through an icy patch.—Searcher (Gyllenhaal) discovers a glowing plant that has a pulsing energy all its own.
Jaeger is unimpressed. Conquering the mountains is his dream, a victory he sees as his legacy. “Avalonia’s future is beyond the horizon,” he says. Determined to move forward, he leaves Searcher and crew behind with the glowing plant. As he disappears into the wintery wilderness he also leaves behind any semblance of a relationship with his son.
Cut to twenty-five years later. Searcher is now grown up and resembles a cartoon John Krasinski with a bulbous nose. His discovery has literally energized the country. Called Pando, it’s a wonder plant that supplies the power that transformed Avalonia into a kind of steampunk paradise. It fuels their airships and keeps the lights on in their homes. “No Pando,” they say, “no power.”
Searcher is a Pando farmer, alongside his wife Meridian (Union) and son Ethan (Jaboukie Young-White), a teen who is more interested in catching the attention of a local boy named Diego than harvesting the crops.
When the Pando crops begin to fail, Avalonia president Callisto Mal (Lucy Liu) reaches out to Searcher looking for help. The crops all across the land are related by an interconnected root system. When one field fails, eventually they all will.
Getting to the source of the trouble means taking a trip to a strange world that lies under the surface. Callisto Mal recruits Searcher to undertake an expedition but it soon becomes a family affair when Ethan stows away on board and Meridian comes to rescue him. Together they enter a surreal subterranean land, home to amorphous, cute-but-not-so-cuddly blobs, hungry phosphorescent creatures and walking mountains. “We are definitely off the map now,” says Callisto Mal.
As they attempt to discover the cause of the Pando plight, they also come across another unexpected find, Jaeger, still searching for whatever is on the other side of the mountain.
“Strange World” puts the action adventure right up front, never missing an opportunity for the characters to take a wild ride of some sort or another. These sequences are imaginative and over-the-top with their stylized action and crazy creatures, but screenwriter and co-director Qui Nguyen isn’t just interested in making your eyeballs dance. He’s crafted an emotional story about legacy, and how the burdens and expectations of one generation can inadvertently passed to the next. Jaeger and Searcher have obvious father son snags, but the friction between Searcher and Ethan isn’t as pronounced, but the issues are the same.
The film does a heartfelt job of essaying the rifts that became chasms over time. Progressive and creative, it casts its eye to a world where respect and acceptance are a balm for troubled relationships.
By the time the end credits roll “Strange World” has established itself as an exciting adventure that values its character-driven messages just as much as the action.
In “C’mon C’mon,” a new black-and-white drama now playing in theatres, radio journalist Johnny, played by Joaquin Phoenix, says he likes to record sound because “it makes the mundane immortal.” Writer/director Mike Mills attempts to create that same kind of magic in his straightforward, unassuming film.
The soft-spoken radio presenter is travelling around the United States, interviewing children about their lives, experiences and the future, when he offers to look at after his nine-year-old nephew Jesse (Woody Norman). Jesse’s mom Viv (Gaby Hoffmann) will be out of town for a week, helping her ex-husband (Scoot McNairy) get settled in a mental health facility. When she is delayed on her return, Johnny takes the youngster on work trips to New York and New Orleans. While Johnny becomes a father figure to Jesse, his relationship with Viv deepens as the long distance, shared experience of looking after the boy brings them closer.
“C’mon C’mon” is a quiet movie that speaks volumes. It asks simple questions, like “Are you happy?” and tries, often in a roundabout way, to answer them. Jesse and Johnny’s conversations, which make up the vast bulk of the movie, are simultaneously insightful, frustrating and vulnerable. Just like real life.
As Jesse, Norman is a child wise beyond his years. He’s a fan of conspiracy theories, asks pointed questions to adults, has a vivid imagination but no friends. What he shares with his uncle is an emotional directness, even if he doesn’t completely grasp what he’s feeling and why.
Oscar winner Phoenix approaches Johnny with warmth and keeps the theatrics to a minimum. They complement one another, feeling out their relationship as they go, learning from one another. It’s lovely in its ordinariness, made all the more special by the naturalistic performances.
I don’t know if “C’mon C’mon” will become immortal, it’s a little too freeform for that, but the simple human truths it essays already are.
