My Father’s Dragon
NetflixOut of all the modern independent animation studios, it is hard to find many as skillful and consistent as Cartoon Saloon. With a filmography of non-stop modern animation classics including The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea, The Breadwinner, and Wolfwalkers, Cartoon Saloon overcame financial difficulties to bring some of the most well-renowned animated features of the last decade. Because of this, it was, of course, exciting to not only have another Cartoon Saloon feature on the horizon, but also to have it being released on Netflix allowing possibly the biggest platform for the company to date. That feature is My Father's Dragon. Based on Ruth Stiles Gannett's 1948 children's novel of the same name, My Father's Dragon sees a young boy named Elmer Elevator (Jacob Tremblay) have his life turned upside down when his mother has to sell their once successful shop and move to a new town to hopefully find more opportunities. All Elmer can dream about is opening a new shop and finding the happiness he and his mother once had. Suddenly, Elmer meets a talking cat (Whoopi Goldberg) and gets sucked into a fantastical adventure where he has to figure out a way to save a dragon named Boris (Gaten Matarazzo) from a group of evil monkeys.
Partially due to the high expectations put on the project, My Father's Dragon is a frustrating feature that clearly sits at the bottom of what Cartoon Saloon has produced to this point. The issues start almost immediately, as much of the first half of the project is hard to sit through with one of the worst and most convoluted setups in recent memory. Rather than simply taking the perspective of Elmer, the story is told through the perspective of his future daughter who is recounting the story. This immediately adds a confusing dimension that adds nothing more than simply living up to the title of the project. The film initially sets up a compelling emotional story regarding Elmer and his mother, but then jolts into the fantastical plot that feels disjointed and far less interesting than what was already established. One emotionally invested in the relationship between Elmer and his mother will be far from invested in a sudden twist where Elmer is riding on the back of a bubbly talking whale named Soda (Judy Greer).
There are two ways that this absurdest side of the film can be used successfully. The first would be to include a direct goal by Elmer that could be achieved from this journey. This has been seen before in animated works such as Luck and i, and it seems to be the avenue My Father's Dragon is most interested in embracing, yet the execution is terrible. It is entirely vague and speculatory that the dragon can help Elmer at all with his journey with this connection failing to feel strong enough for the audience to invest as they should. The other option would be to have this journey have clear deeper meanings for the emotional arc Elmer is on similar to that of Where the Wild Things Are. While this begins to realize itself in the later portion of the film, it is far from enough and is absent in setup. The film gives the audience something worthy and mature only to rip it away with a frustrating distraction that ends up being the majority of the film.
This absurdity, as a result, fails to land. While there are some stunning visuals, this land full of talking animals struggles to spread much joy or imagination. It doesn't help that Boris ends up being an immediate failure due to the bizarre casting choice of Gaten Matarazzo, who immediately sticks out as a sore thumb. Outside of the more intensive emotional moments in which Matarazzo finds success in, his humor and charisma fail to translate to the animated space. Tremblay is much stronger, but his work never finds the same highs as his performance in Luca. These elements come together to create a frustrating and all-around terrible first half that is impossible to recommend.
Luckily for the film, the second half is where the Cartoon Saloon magic truly begins to shine. When the deeper emotional arc of Elmer clashes with this fantastic world, the results are stunning with some of the most emotionally effective sequences and scenes of the year. My Father's Dragon, when it is operating at its best, has a stunning heart that is poignant and mature. It is shocking how in just a single scene, a film like this can outshine anything Disney has produced for years. It also is worth praising the performance by Golshifteh Farahani who demands empathy and an emotional reaction as Elmer’s mother.
These two sides make it nearly impossible to fully judge My Father's Dragon. While the closing stretch is incredible, this doesn't negate the flaws of the first half that truly create a chore to sit through. There is a lack of consistency that is new for Cartoon Saloon and hopefully is something that will be exclusive to this project. Being available on Netflix, it is equally hard to say that one shouldn't give the film a chance as it is hard to say the film deserves priority attention.
