The Magician’s Elephant

Grade: B-

I am noticing lately that characters in animated movies don’t necessarily have perfect, blemish-free faces as much as before. Little by little, freckles, dimples, moles, and zits are creeping in. It’s an inspired choice, and The Magician’s Elephant is no different. It ends up being a worthy addition to Netflix’s canon of family animated movies, which includes the likes of Klaus and Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio.

18-year-old British actor Noah Jupe (Ford v Ferrari, A Quiet Place) heads up a cast of excellent voice talent as Peter, an orphaned boy who is being raised by Vilna (Mandy Patinkin), the soldier who rescued him – now retired and wheelchair-bound. They live in a town called Baltese. It’s explained to us by the narrator – a woman who shows up everywhere, invisible to everybody but us – that Baltese used to have lots of color and magic, but the recent war has turned everything grey, drab, and overcast by a perpetual cloud cover. The arrangement in the sky is so strange to look at. I have seen light fixtures that look like it; it’s a bunch of white, bulb-like protrusions. You can see it in the poster. I waited for an explanation on why it looks so odd, and otherwise wondered why they wouldn’t just animate normal clouds. It distractingly sticks out and goes unacknowledged like an elephant…somewhere.

When shopping for food one day, Peter notices a red tent that’s never been there before, and visits the fortune teller inside (Natasia Demetriou, also the narrator). She tells him that his sister is actually alive and well, and that to find her, he must “follow the elephant.” There aren’t normally elephants in Baltese, but one appears when an inept magician accidentally creates one during a show. Peter wants to keep it, and the King (a scene-stealing Aasif Mandvi) agrees to let Peter have it if he can accomplish one impossible task (that he thinks of) a day, for three days.

This is a rich plot that really grew on me once it finally got going. There were times when I thought people were going to break into song, and as strong as Mark Mothersbaugh’s score is, I was almost disappointed that didn’t happen. He should write songs for a musical. Miranda Richardson and recent Oscar nominee Brian Tyree Henry (Causeway, Bullet Train, Broadway’s The Book of Mormon) also add their voices to the strong cast.

The Magician’s Elephant takes a while to get going. I wondered if liftoff would be achieved, or if this was going to be a chore to watch. It’s like a skateboard ramp: it starts off as close to the ground as possible, then goes up and up and up. By the end, what we have is a marvelous story with characters that are memorable, plot details you don’t see very often, and a sweet ending that is different for the boy and the elephant, but equally satisfying. It’s too bad that the grade reflects the average.

Grade: B-