My Father’s Dragon, a new Netflix movie that began streaming today, shares many traits with a typical animated kids’ movie. There are talking animals, fart jokes, and, of course, a voice cast of A-list actors.
But there is also striking, distinct imagery that captures the imagination—like a dragon tugging up an island that is sinking into the sea. There’s a dreamy, ethereal montage sequence done in a different animation style, reminiscent of shadow puppet theater. And there’s also—spoiler alert—the startlingly dark implication that God is dead. (Or at least, the savior with all the answers is dead, meaning we must find a way to save ourselves.) In other words, while My Father’s Dragon aims to be more mainstream than previous Cartoon Saloon releases, it still has that bite that makes it stand out. And after four Oscar nominations for Best Animated Feature but zero wins, perhaps this could be Cartoon Saloon’s way to the statue.
My Father’s Dragon is the second feature for director Nora Twomey, who co-founded the animation studio Cartoon Saloon with Tomm Moore and Paul Young in 1999. The story—which was adapted from the 1948 book of the same name by Ruth Stiles Gannett by screenwriter Meg LeFauve—follows a young boy named Elmer (voiced by Jacob Tremblay) who runs away from home to a magical island. He’s in search of a dragon who can help turn his family’s luck around, but when Elmer arrives, he finds that both the dragon (voiced by Stranger Things star Gaten Matarazzo), and the island need his help. Elmer is eager to hop into the hero role, but soon finds it’s not easy being the one who supposedly has all the answers. Through this Where the Wild Things Are-esque adventure away from home, Elmer gains empathy for his own struggling single mother.
Unlike Twomey’s Oscar-nominated film The Breadwinner—which was about a young girl living under the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan, and was marketed as an “adult animated drama”—My Father’s Dragon is, like most mainstream animated movies, aimed at a broad, young audience. There are cheesy jokes, wide-eyed animals, and a cute little dragon that just happens to make a great stuffed animal. This isn’t a diss—that’s where the market for animated movies is. And because that market has been ruled by one or two companies for nearly a century, there are too many animated movies look, sound, and feel exactly the same. Certain character designs have become so ubiquitous and repetitive that some, like “the Dreamworks face”—the cocked eyebrow/thin smirk look you always see in Dreamworks and Disney Pixar films—have their own TV Tropes pages.
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Twomey and Cartoon Saloon have offered a much-welcome alternative to the monotony. Last year, the Ireland-based studio released Wolfwalkers on Apple TV+, directed by Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart. The film—which was Moore and Stewart’s “Irish Folklore Trilogy,” also including The Secret of Kells (2009) and Song of the Sea (2014)—was lauded by critics, and was many animation enthusiasts’ pick for Best Animated Feature Film at the Academy Awards. Its striking, hand-drawn animation style—which Moore has said was inspired by classic 2D animation films—felt almost radical. As Decider’s Jade Budowski wrote in her Wolfwalkers review, “There’s something so mesmerizing about seeing the proof of artistry here; all the lines and brush strokes and woodcuts, the shift in style between day and night, city and forest, human and wolf.” And though the story was ostensibly for kids, it wove in adult themes of identity, colonialism, and more.
The Oscar that Wolfwalkers hoped to win ultimately went to Disney Pixar’s Soul. It seems likely that the reason—or at least one of them—is simply because far more Academy voters watched the latest Pixar film, as opposed to an artsy, independent movie on yet another new streaming service they probably don’t want to pay for. A significant number of voters are parents with kids to entertain, after all. Perhaps My Father’s Dragon—which walks the tightrope of mainstream appeal and critical acclaim—will finally earn Cartoon Saloon the trophy it wants. It certainly doesn’t hurt that the movie is on the most popular streaming service. Moore himself said as much in that same press notes interview, stating, “It’s an easy brand. When you tell people My Father’s Dragon is on Netflix they go, ‘Oh! Netflix!’ It’s like you’re real, that you’re an actual release.”
Cartoon Saloon is playing the game, in other words. And why shouldn’t it? My Father’s Dragon may follow the script of a typical family movie to a certain extent, but it also gives up-and-coming animators permission to experiment with style and themes. It’s hard to imagine a scene in a Disney movie where the protagonist journeys to find his mythic savior, only to discover a disturbing pile of bones. If My Father’s Dragon can reach a wide audience—and maybe even win Cartoon Saloon its Oscar—that’s worth a fart joke or two.
