Charlie Kaufman’s first children’s film, made for Netflix, is as weird as you want it to be

At first glance the new children’s film from Netflix and DreamWorks Orion and the dark seems like a standard animated film: there is a little boy who is afraid of the dark, who then comes to life and shows him the wonders of the night and teaches him how to overcome his fears.

But it gets quirky. Extremely idiosyncratic, in fact, in ways that only make sense once you find out the script came from Charlie Kaufman, writer of being John Malkovich, Eternal sunshine of the spotless mindAnd Amendment, among other exciting films. (He previously worked with Netflix on the deeply nightmarish film I’m thinking about ending things.) What starts as a sweet fairytale turns into a metatextual romp that spirals in and out of itself, becoming deeply weird and strangely deep. Sean Charmatz’s animated feature debut is a strange gem that exceeds all expectations.

(Ed. remark: This post contains spoilers for Orion and the dark.)

Based on a picture book by Emma Yarlett, Orion and the dark follows Orion (Jacob Tremblay), an anxious boy who is nervous about everything. He is afraid of talking to his loved one, he is afraid of haircuts, he is afraid of the bleak nothingness that awaits him after death. But above all, he is afraid of the dark. One night, the personification of darkness (aptly named Dark and played by Paul Walter Hauser) appears to him and swears to help Orion overcome his fear by introducing him to the other night deities: Sweet Dreams (Angela Bassett) , Sleep (Natasia Demetriou), Insomnia (Nat Faxon), Silent (Aparna Nancherla) and Unexplained noises (Golda Rosheuvel).

All of these characters have fun, individualistic designs that really emphasize their character and purpose. Of course, Insomnia would be a small mosquito-like creature, while Sweet Dreams would be ethereally beautiful. The animation is unexpectedly beautiful, most of it done in particularly tactile-looking CG that’s designed to hearken back to the original book’s pencil-and-paper illustrations while still rendering them in 3D. It’s different from the usual DreamWorks house style, but also not the same as other stylized DreamWorks films like Puss in Boots: the last wish And The bad guys. It’s a unique look tailored to the film’s storybook roots.

The film begins by following the path of a simple fairy tale, until it doesn’t. This is after all, a Charlie Kaufman script. Orion and the dark is still one Rise of the Guardians or Inside out-style romp about mythical creatures and the personifications of abstract concepts that help a young boy navigate life’s perils. But about a quarter of the way through, we learn that the story of Orion and the dark is told by the older Orion (Colin Hanks) to his daughter Hypatia (Mia Akemi Brown). At first it’s just a cute little frame about a father trying to help his daughter get over her own fears, kind of like The princess bridewith periodic interjections from both parties.

Image: DreamWorks Animation

But it turns out that the adult Orion isn’t so sure of himself and his ability to tell the story. His situation gets meta, and then even more meta, turning what is already a nice movie with fun characters into a deeper meditation on fear and growing up. It’s a powerful story about fear that recognizes that being afraid is a part of life – a part that doesn’t feel good. And it admits that growing up isn’t a magical antidote to childhood anxieties.

The film’s biggest flaw is that it spends a little too much time with young Orion, to the point where it almost seems like he’s solved his problems halfway through the story. That means that, to raise the stakes again, Kaufman introduces a contrived hiccup that feels more like a frustrating setback in Orion’s character development than a natural progression. But thankfully, once the film brings in the older Orion and Hypatia, it hits full speed and uses them to their full potential.

At the end, Orion and the dark has been boldly transformed into a wonderfully eccentric story, which has been given even more metatextual layers. But it never loses its heart: It’s still a bedtime story, a parent and child working together to piece together an ending that satisfies them both. Their voices combine convincingly, with crazy, child-fueled ideas on one side and the careful guiding hand of an adult on the other. But child and parent both learn something from the other, and that turns around Orion and the dark from a simple fairy tale to a beautifully bizarre ride, and ultimately to a film with a message that deeply touches both adults and children.

Orion and the dark now streaming on Netflix.