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My Father’s Dragon is a Gem of Children’s Whimsy


There’s a certain whimsical suspension of disbelief missing from a lot of kids’ movies these days. Particularly in the American animation market, there’s a kind of self-aware cynicism they are imbued with, winking at the audience over their own concepts, tropes, and worlds. Even Disney and Pixar, who tend to blend it better than others, still lack earnestness in their endeavours to capture the voice of their viewers. And they’ll rarely dispense with logic for the sake of fantasy. There were several moments for me watching My Father’s Dragon where I noted how an American studio would lampshade or over-explain its’ leaps of logic -never mind that the film is based on a children’s book- or write its’ heroes with more manufactured personalities.
I and others have often in recent years compared Cartoon Saloon to Studio Ghibli for reasons precisely like this. It is detached from the mechanisms that drive the industry of animated cinema in Hollywood and feels purer as a result. Though it is in English and features several notable American voice actors, My Father’s Dragon, their fifth feature, is closer to something like Kiki’s Delivery Service or Whisper of the Heart than Encanto. Which is why it’s a shame that Netflix seems to have already buried it as they’ve done with plenty of other pretty stellar animated movies they’ve put out recently -including Apollo 10 1/2, Entergalactic, and Wendell & Wild. That algorithm is good for neither their in-house animation efforts nor the companies like Cartoon Saloon that work with them. More people should be aware of My Father’s Dragon.
It’s directed by studio co-founder Nora Twomey, also the director of their 2017 film The Breadwinner. An adaptation of an old children's book by Ruth Stiles Gannett about a kid who rescues a dragon from an island inhabited by wild animals, it’s got a whimsical sensibility to it and a childlike imagination that translates well to the highly appealing style of Cartoon Saloon -drawing perhaps more than any of their other films on the children’s television shows like Puffin Rock that they have produced over the years. And yet it has a palpable curious poignancy to it, its’ characters and virtues and aspects of moral allegory highly evocative of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are -and Spike Jonze’s brilliant adaptation of the same. It is a real story about the anxieties of childhood, different from what Cartoon Saloon has done before in the cinematic medium, and that is thrilling to me.
It remains true to a picture book aesthetic even as it opens in a small desert town where a boy called Elmer (voiced by Jacob Tremblay) and his mother (Golshifteh Farahani) run a candy shop before they are forced to foreclose and move to a New York City-inspired metropolis to start over. But they are unsuccessful at making much headway to earn a living let alone reopen the business, so on the advice of a cat (Whoopi Goldberg), a bitter and desperate Elmer is convinced to seek out Wild Island and free a captive dragon there who could then earn him the money to open the store. Elmer is the “my father” of the title, the film occasionally narrated by a daughter of the distant future voiced by Mary Kay Place.
There’s a higher concentration of recognizable voice talent in My Father’s Dragon than in any Cartoon Saloon movie preceding it, from Ian McShane as the island’s ruling gorilla Saiwa to Judy Greer as a whale called Soda; Diane Wiest, Chris O’Dowd, Alan Cumming, Jackie Earle Haley, Leighton Meester, and even Rita Moreno make appearances, most of them as talking animals Elmer meets along his journey -animals who rely on the young dragon Boris (Gaten Matarazzo) to keep the island from sinking. When Elmer frees him from his binding it’s a dooming prospect for the rest, who spend much of the remainder of the film trying to recapture him as the pair endeavour to seek out some other way to keep the island afloat.
Twomey and her team get a lot out of the sheer buoyant imagination fostered by this island with its’ curious layout and shifting environments -like in all Cartoon Saloon movies, that obsession with circular iconography is key, with the island appearing a perfect ball shape in this stylized perspective. Each sector of it is beautiful though, as are quite a few before the island too; in Elmer’s family shop, quaint apartment, and the contours of the city there are sharp designs and moody shades and so much texture. And this is to say nothing of the animals, each with their own interesting attributes, such as the tigers -dangerous, but with large heads and mouths set on small bodies as to be cute. A crocodile is rendered with creative minimalism that the animation actively plays around with.  And of course oddest of all may be Boris, the dragon with stegosaurus horns all down his back, tiny little wings, and a pigmentation of green and yellow stripes.
He’s written very much like a hyperactive child (he’s only ten in human years), constantly after the snacks in Elmer’s bag and fixated on his image of an “After-Dragon”, a mature rite of passage he endeavours to attain. Something of an older brother-younger brother dynamic forms between the two, wherein Elmer teaches and encourages Boris in various ways. The movie takes in their friendship, finds a warmth and chemistry there, as would be expected of this manner of kids’ movie, but also examines the selfishness that underpins Elmer’s intents -which is a parallel of that of Saiwa. At its’ crux, both of them have noble intentions, but are still exploiting Boris in pursuit of them. It may not be as arduous or traumatizing as Boris’ task for Saiwa and the animals, but Elmer basically wants to make him a circus attraction. Tucked away in the film is a lesson on personal autonomy, the importance of letting others make their own choices, especially with consideration for healthy friendship. Less opaque is the theme on fear that Elmer and Boris, and Saiwa and all the animals have to confront. And I like that it’s not so much about a specific fear that must be overcome or even can be overcome; rather it’s the general acceptance of an uncertain fear, the unknown, and mustering the courage to push through it. Elmer acts out of fear, Saiwa acts out of fear, his lieutenant Kwan reacts in the extreme out of fear -only Boris is open about it. I think it leaves kids with a very good impression, imbuing confidence and reassurance in the end.
It’s not a perfect movie, I would have liked a little more concrete conversation on Elmo’s relationship with his mother -his expectations against her reality, which could even have been achieved through lessons on the island. And there are also a trio of fun street kids who are introduced with some personality only to of course be sidelined for the main adventure. The movie derives some influence from the American animation industry -there’s moments of humour that feel a little too like Disney or Illumination in style- but it is overall more indebted to the tendencies and diversity of world animation; in this a sincere and healthy work of passion, devoid of self-importance or corporate cynicism. Even Netflix doesn’t seem to exert much control, it’s a precious thing for that.
My Father’s Dragon never feels like it drags, even where the plot is less exciting and the dialogue a bit weak. There’s always something in frame to hone in on or marvel at. Nora Twomey and her team at Cartoon Saloon have been working on this for six years and that dedication shows in the finished product. I hope the dreary Netflix algorithm doesn’t get in the way of people seeing that.

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