Flora & Ulysses Assessment: Comedy Tackles Tricky Troubles with Sweetness and a Tremendous-Squirrel
In the grand scheme of “little child meets exceptional animal that aids them get through real-lifetime hardship” films, the genuine powers these animals wield—be it amazing cuddliness or a uncommon capability to have an understanding of human problems—are form of beside the level. Flora & Ulysses states which is all well and fantastic, but in this superhero-flooded earth, young children are entitled to a superpowered squirrel. Many thanks to director Lena Khan and some good VFX perform, Disney+’s Kate DiCamillo adaptation manages to typically make a persuasive, cute and amusing scenario.
Flora (Matilda Lawler, who stands in the right put and states her traces matter-of-factly without having significantly emotion or sense of timing) is still yet another precocious small child, a self-described cynic who spouts comic-adjacent exclamations that set The Major Bang Concept crowd to shame. Disney had improved hope CBS does not choose situation with Flora’s “Holy Bagumba!” She loves comedian books and her mom and dad, who are lately divided. Dad (Ben Schwartz) is a comedian guide artist, mom (Alyson Hannigan) a romance novelist. Flora resuscitates a CGI squirrel that’d been eaten by a runaway vacuum, offering Ulysses his tragic origin story. If this all appears a bit heavy for a kids’ motion picture, it is mainly because Flora & Ulysses operates headlong into some darker tonal territory that typically works—divorce, CPR and euthanasia are all taken care of with respectable straightforwardness—as extensive as you are not scared to get a tiny whipped close to by its tone.
Flora and her new friend discover themselves in a little bit of a Shazam! scenario, wherever she demands to assist the rodent discover its powers although reminding us of all the tropes of comic e book heroism: Specifically hope that the tiny guy can conquer hardship. A protagonist that retreats from real globe troubles into superhero fantasies should really be relatable to plenty of persons having component in pop tradition appropriate now, and even Lawler’s relative woodenness can’t reduce Ulysses from clicking. The squirrel Forex glimpse excellent: Ulysses is an expressive, fuzzy-wuzzy little male that blends with his atmosphere fairly than clashes, even when in Flora’s fingers. He’s on the cartoony side of realism and it delivers a dynamic slapstick strength sorely lacking from his human costars. Not so considerably a mangy cat that pops up afterwards.
Ulysses can have an understanding of and sort English—the latter in amusingly sparse, poetic sentences largely about currently being hungry—is super powerful and has an increased agility that sales opportunities him to conduct a great deal of slo-mo backflips. It could be tacky, but the script utilizes Ulysses’ real powers sparingly, which actually feels restrained and fulfilling somewhat than extremely limited. It keeps the plot scaled down and manageable, by no means overextending its narrative abilities.
That narrative is generally about Flora’s mother and father. Equally are just. So. Unfortunate. Hannigan imbues her frustrated author, in terrific robey costumes surrounded by fakey classic home décor, with charming asides and an engaging melancholy, but Schwartz feels miscast—even just after existence of a tremendous-squirrel places hope again into his daily life. The latter actor has a incredibly unique comic electricity that by no means clicks into his schlubby sadsack, whose deadpans are so depressing as to be absurd. He has a handful of intelligent rambling seeming advertisement-libs, but his funniest moment is fairly angrily stating a multisyllabic “Squir-rel! Squir-rel!” as chaos ensues all-around him in a donut shop. The pair have to have to know that magic even now exists in the planet, one thing altered a little bit from the source material, and the actors tackle this arc with an understated sweetness.
Khan and screenwriter Brad Copeland smartly inject some of the resource book’s comic panel factors into the film’s montages, using it both equally formally and narratively to force along its feelings. “Sometimes it is easier to attract a superhero than to act like a person,” is how the film clarifies parents working away from, alternatively than working with, marital strife. It is vague and palms-off—and even then it can get so unhappy that it threatens to derail the film—but refreshingly, it doesn’t at any time discuss down to its audience. Its parallels to comicky escapism are crystal clear adequate that its young viewers should really connect the dots, much too. But it’s also below that the pace hiccups—though coming in at below 90 minutes, there is not a ton of time for the film to drag its toes as a result of its 3rd act.
But ahead of that, the film zips together like The Flash. Truly, sorry, that need to be a Disney qualities. Of course, Flora & Ulysses exists in a bizarre earth of model synergy in which the only pop tradition that exists is both Star Wars, Marvel, or one thing composed by one of the film’s characters. Or it’s Titanic (which Disney also now kind of owns). Which is the 1 piece of meta-silliness the film lets itself, primarily viewing its jokes and forged (especially its lead) tugged alongside by Khan’s energetic and technically able path. There’s a coherent visual language to all the gags, from domestic pitter-patter and place-of-check out pictures from or at its CGI critters to a motor vehicle chase that owes its central joke to Ace Ventura. It is various and interesting throughout—far far better than this sort of film typically gets—and assists seize the spirit of K. G. Campbell’s illustrations in all their madcap Tom & Jerry domesticity.
Copeland, whose NewsRadio and Arrested Improvement bonafides led him to generate things like the horrible Yogi Bear and Wild Hogs, finds a groove here. Fortunately, Ulysses’ sweetness, the gameness of the forged and the tonal complexity of the resource material make some of the hackier jokes tolerable and the actual physical comedy mainly amusing—though there are nonetheless all the common beats. Animals slap into and then slide off of glass not after but 2 times. There is also a gross homelessness joke and a child (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) with a tragic backstory and “hysterical blindness,” which is occasionally amusing (many thanks to Ainsworth’s sporting general performance) but generally distracting with all the baggage of producing a child actor pretend to be blind for kicks.
By considerably the funniest portion of the film is Danny Pudi, reuniting with Khan soon after starring in her debut The Tiger Hunter, who will come in with a shining, flawlessly gauged supporting effectiveness as an animal handle officer with a vendetta from squirrels. Each and every scene with him is so funny that you want it was a simple squirrel vs. Pudi, Elmer Fudd-esque tale.
Although a tiny dark and a very little unsteady—and boxed in a little bit by the constraints of its genre—Flora & Ulysses however hits most of the correct beats and manages to discover some resonant, smart matters to say about some pretty grown-up subjects. Sure, there is a uninteresting guide and some tonal wobbles listed here and there, but if this motion picture teaches us just about anything, it’s that there is very little that just cannot be straightened out by a solid director and a lovable squirrel.

Director: Lena Khan
Author: Brad Copeland
Stars: Matilda Lawler, Alyson Hannigan, Ben Schwartz, Anna Deavere Smith, Danny Pudi, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, Janeane Garofalo, Kate Micucci
Launch Day: February 19, 2021 (Disney+)

Jacob Oller is Flicks Editor at Paste Magazine. You can adhere to him on Twitter at @jacoboller.
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