Maybe it’s a post-Pixar phenomenon that animated films need to tackle complex themes or ideas, translating it into terms kids can understand. This is the case with “Over the Moon,” a film that is part “Trolls World Tour,” part lesson on grappling with the loss of a parent. It’s a mixture where both sides seem at odds with each other. The fun is ruined by the death of a loved one, while the antics prevent the story from finding emotional lift-off.
Glen Keane, Gennie Rim, and Peilin Chou collaborated on the production, but Audrey Wells wrote the screenplay in 2018 just before she died of cancer. On its surface, the film seems like a romp through a magical planet, but the story itself is grounded in Wells’ very human concerns.
The story opens in China, with our heroine Fei Fei (voiced by Cathy Ang) enchanted by her mother’s stories of the moon goddess Chang’e. Fei Fei’s mother, who bakes the town’s moon cakes, passes away after falling ill. It happens so abruptly we are never told what caused her illness. But before we can speculate too much, Fei Fei’s father (John Cho) starts seeing someone new (Sandra Oh), which makes her very, very upset.
So when does the magical planet come in? After Fei Fei bails on family dinner, she wanders into the country, builds a rocket, and flies to a planet called Lunaria. The film doesn’t present this as a dream, fantasy, or illusion. It’s the world mom told her about, and her intention is to bring back proof that Chang’e exists, as a way of reminding her family to remain loyal to her mother’s memory. She flies past star clusters, asteroid fields, and space dragons, eventually landing on… a concert?
As it so happens, Chang’e is a bit of a space diva who’s fond of belting out Katy Perry-esque empowerment tunes against a blobby, bubble-gum colored backdrop. The transition—from hyperreal water lilies that glisten on ponds to gooey, amorphous space critters—is jarring. The sequences on the moon grow tiresome, despite toads that fly and motorcycle riding chickens. The film’s bright colors and brazenly happy music may not be enough for viewers to overcome the themes of loss that orbit Fei Fei’s adventure.
The second and third acts involve Fei Fei teaming up with her friends and lunar locals, a bunny, a rabbit, a moon blob (Ken Jeong), and a possible stepbrother (Robert G. Chiu), to save Chang’e from losing her boyfriend in space. Her journey will be familiar to fans of Disney/Pixar’s recent output, with callbacks to the familial warmth in “Coco” and the cold yet necessary message on letting go in “Frozen.” Keane, making his feature debut after winning an animated short Oscar for his Kobe Bryant collaboration, “Dear Basketball,” does a fine job incorporating these influences, though he struggles with seamlessly mixing his settings.
There are some colorful and imaginative set pieces, and the voice performances from Ang and Soo are especially exuberant, but the tone of “Over the Moon” is odd as the gravity of Fei Fei’s real-life issues invades the planet of Lunaria. Imbuing a story like this with issues of death and trauma can be good for kids, but it makes it so much harder to find the bright side of the moon. [C]
“Over the Moon” is available now on Netflix.