'The Magician's Elephant'

Movie Review

Based on Kate DiCamillo's novel of the same name, The Magician's Elephant is an American computer-animated fantasy adventure movie that was produced by Julia Pistor, directed by Wendy Rogers, and features the voices of Noah Jupe, Mandy Patinkin, Natasia Demetriou, Benedict Wong, Miranda Richardson, and Aasif Mandvi. It will be released in 2023. Critics gave the movie a variety of ratings.

The Magician's Elephant centers on Peter (Noah Jupe), a little boy who was abandoned by his family and raised by Vilna (Mandy Patinkin), a strict elderly soldier. Peter's relatively rigid upbringing hasn't stopped him from becoming a nice, hopeful young man, which is a credit to his fortitude considering how difficult it would be to live off of "little fish and stale bread" for so long. Not to mention that their quaint hamlet has been perpetually clouded over for years without even a glimmer of the sun.

One day, Peter notices a fortune-tent teller in the middle of the city, and his curiosity overrides his sense of propriety. He asks the fortune teller (Natasia Demetriou) if his little sister is still alive with the one coin he was supposed to use to pay for supper. Always cryptic, she instructs him to "follow the elephant" in order to locate his sister. The fact that a local magician (Benedict Wong) just so happened to create one out of thin air in an effort to drive away the clouds is fortunate.

In order to test whether the elephant can really lead him to his long-lost sister, Peter gets determined to release the elephant from the palace where it is being held. To his dismay, the king (Aasif Mandvi) is unwilling to let the beast go so simply. He consents to let Peter keep the elephant, but only if he succeeds in completing three nearly impossible feats.

Even while references to the not-so-distant conflict stir up imagery recognizable to older audiences, the animation in the movie is endearing, with a whimsical, fairytale look to the whole thing that helps the storyline feel ageless. The film's greatest power eventually comes from the director Wendy Rogers and author Martin Hynes' masterful balancing act between the real world and the surreal.

The Magician's Elephant's idea is absolutely endearing as a setup. The plot is driven by Peter's three impossible tasks, which keeps it interesting for the young audience that this movie is undoubtedly aiming for. Even while they occasionally slow down the rhythm, the prolonged action sequences also seem to have been created with them in mind.

The fairy tales and folktales we all grew up with, as well as many more stories of similar type, always had a moral at their center. The fundamental strength of The Magician's Elephant is that it goes beyond that. It might be something as straightforward as telling their young audience to behave or believe in a certain way. Instead, it imparts a lesson that is never expressed as plainly but rather permeates the entire story and stays long after the film has ended.

The magician summoned the elephant herself in an effort to clear the town of its persistent cloud cover. Although he hadn't intended to summon the elephant, his endeavor was solely based on the hope and assumption that it was even conceivable. Peter is motivated to do his three seemingly difficult duties by the same hope and faith. The dread of failure is present in both situations, but it never becomes overwhelming enough to stop them or make them believe that the impossible things they set out to do are actually impossible.

I hope the youthful audience ultimately takes something positive away from the movie. Things in our world seem more and more inconceivable as time goes on. And while the clouds in the sky are less the cute Mammatus cloud sort and more symbolic in nature, the fundamental principle is still the same. An endearing family movie with a positive message.

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