THE WILLOUGHBYS

Featuring the voices of: Will Forte, Maya Rudolph, Terry Crews, Martin Short, Jane Ktakowski, Seán Cullen, Alessia Cara and Ricky Gervais.
Writers: Chris Pearn and Mark Stanleigh; based on the book by Lois Lowry.
Director: Chris Pearn.

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Rating: ★ ★ ★

The plot to The Willoughbys sounds like a Netflix kind of pitch; four children, including two creepy twins, plan patricide and matricide to rid themselves of selfish, abusive parents and willingly render themselves orphans. But instead of the streaming platform’s umpteenth must-watch true-crime mini-series, director Chris Pearn delivers the network’s second animated family adventure, an adaptation of Lois Lowry’s darkly hued but sweet natured children’s book.

Having helmed the flavourful, frantic, if hollow sequel, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2, Pearn offers a similarly colourful if slightly too contrived retelling of Lowry’s bestseller. The story’s protagonist is put-upon pre-teen Tim (Will Forte), the eldest of the four Willoughby children and the least likely to show any sign of inheriting the family’s distinctive feature, a deep red moustache. His sister Jane (Moana songstress Alessia Cara) is a dreamer, but one who curtails her longings to help care for the twins, both called Barnaby (Seán Cullen). The parents (Martin Short, Jane Krakowski) are despicable people, self-obsessed and petulant, who cast Tim to the basement coalpit each night and refuse to feed the children for days on end.

Inherently dark material (one winces at what a Tim Burton or Guillermo del Toro adaptation might have looked like), but Pearn’s animation style is richly textured and wildly imaginative, the visuals softening the jagged edges. Proceedings are lightened up further thanks to the droll narration of The Cat (Ricky Gervais); the introduction of the boisterous Nanny (a wonderful Maya Rudolph); and, shifting the location at crucial points to a candy factory run by the larger-than-life Commander Melanoff (Terry Crews).

Early on, Jane finds new purpose in her life and Pearn amps up the slapstick when a mischievous baby enters The Willoughby’s home (exhibiting agility not unlike Jack Jack Parr), but the character soon fades away. It is one of several spasms of undeveloped material that feel like the adaptation was unable to overcome leftover chapter-beats from its source material. One sequence, in which the four children ‘Home Alone’ prospective buyers, feels like an altogether different short film entirely. A third act that sends the kids to Sweezerlund spins the film into pure fantasy and appears to be setting up a predictably feel-good conclusion, but credit to the production for staying true to the narrative’s darker themes, up until the final frames.

The Willoughbys is too hit-miss to achieve the instant classic status bestowed upon Netflix’s debut cartoon feature, the Oscar-nominated Klaus (2019). But if the storytelling stumbles, Pearn and his animators certainly deliver colour and movement in a manner that is sure to enthrall the under 10s.