Review of The Willoughbys (2020) by Armflailingtube — 28 Apr 2020

This movie taught me the same thing that Tall Girl did and that is, if Netflix is hardcore pushing you to watch one of their movies, it's probably a good idea to ignore it. I hesitated on watching this movie and, ya know, some times you really should just go with your first instinct. Things started okay. We see a setup with the leader, Tim, explaining the Willoughby family lineage of prodigy's and how his parent's are trash and don't take care of him or his siblings. Ok good, that's all the setup we need. "Bad parents, what do we do?" Except, suddenly, there's this whole sub plot line with a random baby that gets abandoned on the Willoughbys' door step and the Willoughby children go out of their way to find it a home before going back to resume their own plot.

The pacing in this movie is really weird. The movie spends an unusually long amount of time setting up the whole "send parents away" plot line and then just kind of juggles the plot in the air until the movie ends on a cliche and predictable note. The parents aren't good people but it's hard to pinpoint their reasons for hating children other than just being stuck up aristocrats. After all, there has to be some reason why they keep the children around as opposed to putting them up for adoption. At one point, the father tells the children not to come back until they get rid of the baby. Well, if he wanted them gone, wouldn't this be his chance to do so for good? Why does he allow them back?

Again, we see the parents straight up abandon their children to go on vacation. And also they get a nanny, not because they want their children to be taken care of, but because they don't want their house to be ruined.

None of the characters, aside from the children, are particularly likable largely because the movie never takes enough time to establish their character. The nanny is most certainly the most annoying and unlikeable character despite her role in the story. She just comes off as some dumb millennial who represents the "new" people of this generation (I don't particularly like the way she looks either (especially her tiny Squidward nose), but that's just me).

The animation itself is good and fun to look at in a Walace and Grommit claymation sort of way. The actors all did a wonderful job, so no problem their.

A lot of messages in this story are plain and simply not good. First, I'm sick of seeing the idea of tradition being painted as this thing that chains people down to the horrible fate that they've been given and is a thing that we should break and just end up not having any traditions because traditions are awful. This is a ridiculous and dangerous message being thrown around now days. Traditions are ideas that are rooted in the values and beliefs of a community. If you get rid of these ideas, then the community has no common ground and is more likely to be polarized. They are good commonalities to have, not rules to be broken.

Another is the message that, if your parents are bad or you think they are bad or you don't like them, then it's totally okay to go find new parents as we see with the Willoughby children sending away their parents and going out to seek a new home. Sure, these children needed a change, but this movie is for families including children. Children are easily impressionable and may think that a simple punishment on them is comparable to the parents portrayed in this movie. The one really good message this movie does have is the importance for siblings to stick together. A far less cliche than families sticking together.

Honestly, this movie is not great. It's visually appealing but is creatively and narratively lacking.