Family movie night, a concept we created in lockdown a year ago, had sounded so good on paper - popcorn, sausage rolls and pizza in front of some nostalgic piece of Disney whimsy, and at times it has fulfilled our expectations, but at least as often it has foundered on the rocks of some 90-minute voyage of inanity like last week's Octonauts: The Ring of Fire. (Thanks Casper [4].)
I had not been especially excited about watching The Mitchells, but I was excited about Jumbo, which had sounded so good on paper: A woman and an amusement park ride falling in love. And it started out good too - a bunch of wacky characters doing weird things - but in the end it was just the story of a relationship between a woman and an amusement park ride.
Any good relationship teaches you that expectations are often disappointed. I wrote this review at home, at the kitchen table, opposite Zanna. It's unusual for us to be working together like this and I watched her lovingly, tapping away on her own review at the other end of the table. She had one foot on the floor and the other up on the chair, with her head resting on her knee. Because she has recently hurt her back, and because I care for her, I said, "Is that posture good for your back health?"
She replied: "If you're going to be working at home with me, you're going to need to stop talking."
SHE SAW
We watched two films this week. One, Jumbo, a French film about a woman falling in passionate love with a mechanical theme park ride and the other, The Mitchells vs. the Machines, an animated family film about a robot takeover. The two films couldn't have been more different and yet both were centred around human/machine relationships. Clearly, the AI apocalypse is humankind's greatest fear right now. Well, maybe second, behind the climate crisis, or third, behind an anxiety-inducing global pandemic which hadn't happened when these films were being written. Who am I kidding? The world is a cesspit of impending moments of doom and a robot takeover is just one more.
Thankfully, The Mitchells vs. The Machines at least makes this one seem funny. I'm a huge fan of television comedy Broad City, The Righteous Gemstones was probably our favourite series of 2020 and the judge on The Good Place was by far the best thing about that show. Which is to say that an animated film with Abbi Jacobson, Danny McBride and Maya Rudolph voicing the leads is about as in my wheelhouse as any animated film could be. And then there's Olivia Colman as an embittered Siri-like virtual assistant and robot overlord.
The central premise of the film is that Katie (Jacobson) has a falling out with her dad, Rick (McBride), on the eve of leaving to fulfil her lifelong dream of attending film school. In an attempt to mend their relationship, Rick cancels her flights and decides the whole family will drive across the country and deliver her to college. Sound a bit like an animated National Lampoon's Vacation? It's not. The family don't get far before robot warfare ensues and the Mitchells find themselves in charge of saving the human race from the machine apocalypse.
The animation has a retro early 90s aesthetic, with Katie's homemade films providing a comical visual motif. John Legend and Chrissy Teigen are delightfully cast as the "perfect family," next to the Mitchells, who Katie describes as a family that "only has weaknesses". Writer/directors Mike Rianda and Jeff Rowe have surprisingly few comedy credits to their names considering that this film is wall-to-wall jokes.
None of our kids showed any interest in The Mitchells before Greg chose it for family movie night, and they're always primed to hate our choices, but all three laughed out loud at times, as did Greg and I. For parents, finding a film like this is basically reaching nirvana. And being able to laugh at our imminent demise is a gift, even if the reprieve proves fleeting.
The Mitchells vs. The Machines is streaming on Netflix.
