Film Alert: 'Orion and the Dark' - Review
Charlie Kaufman Tackles Children’s Fears
Charlie Kaufman is considered one of the best and most distinctive screenwriters working today. Kaufman always writes about himself and the worries he has in his life, such as loneliness and depression. And for his latest project, he decided to pen Orion and the Dark for director Sean Charmatz… a children’s animated feature for Netflix? It is definitely a weird choice when you consider the rest of his work: this one is a massive outlier in his repertoire. But one that draws immediate intrigue. While the film targets a younger audience, Kaufman still keeps his screenplay with his usual existential tone, although to a slighter degree.
Here’s an excerpt from my review:
Orion (Jacob Tremblay) is a kid who’s afraid of everything. He is scared of bees, rejection, giving incorrect answers in class, the school bully Richi Panichi, and plenty of other things that happen in his daily life. Fear has been eating his whole life, making him hide from everything life has thrown at him – including his crush, who asked him to sit with him on a field trip. Orion thinks the world is out to get him; that’s why he always prefers to stay by himself. His parents (Carla Gugino and Matt Dellapina) try to do everything they can to calm him down and confront his fears. But Orion is too panic-stricken and frantic to come close to facing the mental terrors.
Out of the many things Orion fears, the dark is the one that sends chills down his spine. Many of us can relate to what Orion experiences, as our household’s darkened corridors and corners had us running up the stairs to our rooms like scaredy cats. One night, Orion gets a surprise visitor who will turn his life around, Dark (Paul Walter Hauser) – the meta-physical embodiment of the night and darkness surrounding us. This night entity knows much about Orion’s fears, so he sees him as an annoyance. Like the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future in ‘A Christmas Carol’, Dark decides to take the kid on a trip where he will learn that there’s nothing to be afraid of when it comes to darkness.
Dark introduces Orion to the other night entities, which will remind you of Pixar’s Inside Out: Sleep (Natasia Demetriou), Sweet Dreams (Angela Bassett), Insomnia (Nat Faxon), and Unexplained Noises (Golda Rosheuvel). Their daily duties are helping people sleep well, or in some cases, even wake up in the middle of the night worried about a stressful situation. Some time after their travels together, out of nowhere, the film cuts away from Orion and Dark’s adventure. It reveals that it is a bedtime story being told by the adult Orion (Colin Hanks) to his daughter Hypatia (Mia Akemi Brown). This storytelling trick immediately reminded me of Kaufman’s Adaptation screenplay, where he placed himself inside the film and talked about his struggles. (Coincidentally, the adult version of Orion also looks similar to him when younger.)
Read my full review for Loud & Clear Reviews HERE.
Orion and the Dark is now available to stream on Netflix.