My Father’s Drag­on – first-look review

When peo­ple talk about Irish ani­ma­tion stu­dio Car­toon Saloon’s tra­di­tion­al­ism, they’re not just talk­ing about the exquis­ite 2D ani­ma­tion which has become their hall­mark. Across their acclaimed decade-long fil­mog­ra­phy, the Kilken­ny house has demon­strat­ed a refresh­ing com­mit­ment to tra­di­tion­al sto­ry­telling as well. Fables and folk tales are deliv­ered with sin­cer­i­ty and del­i­ca­cy, as well as a refusal to talk down to the younger end of their audi­ence, free of the noise and clut­ter and atti­tude of oth­er West­ern ani­mat­ed films, care­ful­ly paced yet full of youth­ful won­der even when the sub­ject mat­ter (as with their out­stand­ing adap­ta­tion of The Bread­win­ner) veers heavy.

In ret­ro­spect, it was only a mat­ter of time before they would adapt a clas­sic piece of children’s lit­er­a­ture. For My Father’s Drag­on (based upon the 1948 book by Ruth Stiles Gan­nett) we’re in the ter­ri­to­ry of a fan­ta­sy adven­ture as metaphor for that moment as a child where you have to come to terms with the fact that your par­ents don’t always have all the answers when things look bleak. Elmer (Jacob Trem­blay) and his moth­er have been forced to move to Nev­er­green City after the shop they ran saw its busi­ness dry up, which has put a strain on their rela­tion­ship. When direct­ed by a talk­ing cat to res­cue a drag­on called Boris (Gat­en Mataraz­zo) on a remote island which is sink­ing into sea, Elmer sets off in hopes that doing so can pro­vide the answer to his family’s troubles.

It’s a jour­ney made out of fear, though it will take Elmer some time to admit that he is tru­ly scared about his wider sit­u­a­tion. Much like his moth­er, Elmer has to put on a brave face for Boris – a clum­sy, some­times absent-mind­ed, self-con­scious drag­on scared about not liv­ing up to what every­body expects of him – telling ​‘good’ lies in an effort to keep his charge’s spir­its up whilst he tries to fig­ure out the solution.

In a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion is the leader of the island, a goril­la (Ian McShane) who trapped the drag­on in the first place, sad­dled with the respon­si­bil­i­ty of keep­ing his denizens’ spir­its alive in the face of a cat­a­stroph­ic col­lapse he lacks the pow­er to stop. Even though he’s the antag­o­nist of our tale, chas­ing down Elmer and Boris to recap­ture the drag­on, he’s not a bad guy, although his (and Elmer’s) con­tin­u­ing dis­hon­esty about how dire things may be are mak­ing things worse.

In this respect, and in the more whim­si­cal tone over­all to the pic­ture (there are even a pair of hon­est to God fart jokes), this is the most explic­it­ly child-aimed Car­toon Saloon film yet. The all-star celebri­ty voice cast and screen­play by Pixar vet­er­an Meg LeFauve, mean it’s tempt­ing to won­der whether the ten­drils of their new Net­flix dis­trib­u­tor have tak­en hold of such a sin­gu­lar stu­dio. Such fears are mis­placed. Direc­tor Nora Twom­ey still dis­plays a strong grasp of restraint in the set­pieces, and spe­cif­ic focus on char­ac­ter work above all else that oth­er cre­ators in this field could do with being remind­ed of.

The cast are (lit­er­al­ly) colour­ful, drawn in easy-to-under­stand arche­type but each bring­ing dif­fer­ent ener­gies that are nev­er over­ex­posed in com­par­i­son to the cen­tral rela­tion­ship between Elmer and Boris. Each have love­ly and strik­ing sto­ry­book designs that are ever so pleas­ing to look at: thin, angu­lar alli­ga­tors with per­fect-cir­cle eyes which sit on top of their extend­ed mouths; adorable rhi­nos with soft colour palettes; Boris him­self being bul­bous and stripy with tiny wings, his plus-sized body shape nev­er played for a cheap joke or pre­sent­ed as some­thing which will be even­tu­al­ly overcome.

There may not be as much to chew on here as with Wolfwalk­ers, at least on first watch, but that doesn’t mean My Father’s Drag­on lacks moments of tran­scen­dence. Few oth­er ani­ma­tion col­lec­tives work­ing today are this good at exe­cut­ing the tra­di­tion­al fun­da­men­tals of sto­ry­telling like Car­toon Saloon can, util­is­ing lay­out and board­ing in such a way that being pulled into their worlds is such an irre­sistible prospect.

And yes, My Father’s Drag­on builds up to a cathar­tic cli­max that wrests ful­ly earned tears of joy. Car­toon Saloon are now 5 for 5, arguably the best fea­ture ani­ma­tion stu­dio in the world today, and still res­olute­ly old-fash­ioned in a field of their own. Long may they con­tin­ue to reign.