I choose (to watch anything else)
“All of my life
I thought I was right
Looking for something new
Stuck in my ways
Like old-fashioned days
But all the roads led me to you”- I choose you, Alessia Cara, The Willoughbys
The first movie you watch in a year should impact you. It should leave an imprint on your mind with thoughts that could lead you into the future. Now, there is definitely something wrong with wanting something to be a certain way. We have all been there where the mere expectation is simply too high to meet. If something “should” be a way, it never would be because the idea in ones head will forever overshadow reality.
Now, having made the fact clear that the movie “The Willoughbys” would never have met my expectation: I’d like to go as far as to say it may not meet anyone’s expectation.
—————— SPOILER ALERT ———————
The Willoughbys has a pretty great premise of four children (Tim, Jane, Barnaby and Barnaby) having terrible parents and their attempts at becoming orphans. It is what one would call, the modern day take on series of unfortunate events. It’s dark in ideology but could have been hilarious in execution. Then, what is the problem with it? If I had to describe in one word, that would be overuse. The screenwriters of this movie overused everything: from humour to imagery to rainbows to misery to the familial bonds.
The story goes that the Willoughbys are miserable due to having extremely indifferent parents. This is a pretty dark for a world where we are taught to protect kids’ innocence at all cost. This does not bother me even though the reasoning is never explained. It is as if on face value you believe these parents are monsters (sigh).
The story is told as a third person narrative which is a great technique for retelling tales. This third person narrator (a cat) is incredibly funny* and should have been given more screen time. These Willoughby children devise a plan to orphan themselves because here’s the catch: they discover an orphan on their doorstep who is adopted by a candy-factory owner who happens to be a great dad (say what now?!). The entire sequence of the children finding this orphan on their doorstep has several purposes:
To introduce a father figure clearly missing in the movie (Commander Melanoff)
To seed the idea that being an orphan is better than having awful parents
To add some humorous, rainbowed up sequences to the movie (which are all well and good as long as they didn’t appear ALL THE TIME)
The story of this orphan finding a home is meant to evoke an emotional response from the audience but it fails miserably at that. The movie never manages to create any empathy for the fate of its characters. The way this orphan is named “Ruth” after the world being a ruthless place is quite pointed but quickly smoothed over that you never get a chance to dwell upon it.
There are too many plots for a 92 minute movie.
So, back to the children and what is even laughed-upon-in-the-movie masterplan to cause the death of their parents. They trick these nasty adults to take an adventure tour which will (hopefully) end in their (parents) demise paving way for a future filled with blissful happiness.
The idea that life would be better without adults is ingrained into the psyche of all children that this would have been a delightful thing to watch on screen. These kids do run into problems being without adult supervision; a problem quickly solved by introducing the nanny character, Linda. She is the saving grace of the movie. Voiced by Maya Rudolph, she brings to the story exactly what the children (and the audience) need. She is instant well-liked mother figure quite similar to Molly Weasley in Harry Potter films. The purpose of such characters is for instilling hope among the audience.
Tim is trying hard to prove that he can shoulder upon responsibility he is too old for. Jane is inquisitive and unafraid while the twin Barnabys have clearly got somewhat Phineas and Ferb vibes. You cannot feel a lot of empathy for any of these characters. Tim is a very downtrodden hero for whom responsibility of a household is a bigger burden than he imagined. Jane is meant to represent optimism and hope: yet, her brand of literally following the rainbow seems (for lack of a better word) childish. The Barnabys are there for comic relief. It’s as though the writers thought: twins are funny and nerdy boys unaware of social cues is funny too: what if we add those two together?
Fast forwarding the several different plots:
Parents try to sell the house, but Linda saves the house by supporting the children to drive off potential real estate opportunities
Tim, under misinformation, manages to send Linda away by calling the Orphan services
All kids are all separated
Linda breaks Tim out who is being kept in this jail-esque cell where he is refusing to eat (argh, terrible way of throwing a tantrum)
Kids all reunite and realise they are a family
Linda is reunited with Ruth and potential love interest, Commander Melanoff
The four children sensing a family unit, abandon help from adults and run off to the Alps in the hope of getting their parents back (really?)
The parents are equally terrible still and abandon the 4 kids on top of the Alps and eventually die
Willoughbys are nearly frozen before being rescued by Commander Melanoff and Linda
Then, the movie has the most predictable ending: these children find a home with Commander Melanoff and Linda. This does not bother me in the least. If I were being honest, I was rooting for this ending since the character of Linda is introduced. The movie manages to convey that good parents are at the centre of a functioning family unit. It oversimplifies the complex family dynamics and celebrates unconditional love which I could grinch upon a little.
The song, I choose you is injected beautifully at the time when the kids realise that they are already a family because they have each other. The idea that family does not need to be traditional is one of the central theme of this movie. Yet, the storywriters couldn’t wait to bash it up by providing kids with two adults that can take care of them.
My problem with “The Willoughbys” is that it could be so close to being great if only they had edited away some of the endless sequences of rainbows and repetitive humour and unnecessary plot points. There are a dozen things I did like about “The Willoughbys”: the valour of Tim, the humour in the switching sweaters of the Barnabys, the home-alone-esque sequence of the kids driving away potential buyers of the house. As I list what I liked about the movie it highlights what I disliked the most: there wasn’t anything clear to love or hate. The Willoughbys is a series of interesting clips put together and letting the audience choose what they think. I conclude with saying that this movie is a disaster in execution of several dozen good ideas.
* voiced by Ricky Gervais
P.S. I love the fact that the parents in the Willoughbys call each other: Mother and Father. This is such a stark comparison to how bad they are at fulfilling the roles they refer each other as.