Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Willoughbys’ on Netflix, a Zany Animated Family Movie With a Dark Fringe

The Willoughbys has a tough act to follow, considering Netflix’s two previous animated efforts, Klaus and I Lost My Body, nabbed Oscar nominations. Regardless, it’s poised to be devoured by the quarantine-weary masses yearning for something to keep the whole family amused, whether it’s a stone classic or just fleeting amusement.

THE WILLOUGHBYS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: A blue cat voiced by Ricky Gervais narrates, and occasionally intrudes upon, the story of the Willoughbys, a family of oddballs living isolated in an “old-fashioned” house tucked between two skyscrapers — Up-style, except nobody’s coming with a bulldozer yet. The mother and father (Martin Short and Jane Krakowski) are godawful parents, cruel and neglectful, the picture of emotional abuse. These CPS cases are so in love with each other, they produce children they don’t want and banish them to various corners of their eccentric home, so as not to intrude upon their kissyface whatnot. The kids get fed only “yesterday’s food,” if there’s any left after Bad Mom and Bad Dad are done with it. The mother is inexplicably obsessed with yarn and knitting, and the Willoughby hair is inexplicably yarn-like.

The kids are as follows: Tim (voice of Will Forte) is the oldest, and he wishes the family was as majestic and proud as the inexplicable weirdo Willoughbys whose portraits line their walls. Jane (Alessia Cara) is the middle child, who loves to sing. The youngest are the inexplicably helmet-haired Barnabys (Sean Cullen), twins with but one sweater to share between them. They pretty much fend for themselves, and the parents frequently punish Tim by locking him in the coal cellar. It’s a lovely house, but it’s not a home. There’s no cell phone, no TV and no love, save for that which bonds the siblings. They wish they were orphans — and they decide to act on it.

The kids devise a lengthy vacation for their gullible, empty-skulled mom and dad, one with a high likelihood of their being devoured by sharks, bears or a crevasse. They bite, and hire the cheapest nanny they can find to watch over the children while they’re gone. Nanny (Maya Rudolph) introduces the kids to things like oatmeal, concern and affection. She even goes so far as to differentiate the Barnabys as Barnaby A and Barnaby B.

Other things happen randomly: The kids befriend an orphan baby named Ruth, inexplicably left on their doorstep one day. They can’t keep her, so they leave her on the doorstep of the town’s inexplicable local Wonkalike, a candy mogul dubbed Commander Melanoff (Terry Crews). (Get it? “Baby Ruth”?) The Department of Orphan Services gets involved, an organization that consists of roughly three dozen Tilda Swinton clones. And the cat wanders about, saying clever things here and there. Will the parents be gruesomely killed, therefore fulfilling the hopes and dreams of their adorable cartoon children?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Willoughbys boasts a Wes Anderson-via-Henry Selick visual inspiration cut with the frantic non-sequiturial nature of Kris Pearn’s previous directorial effort, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2.

Performance Worth Watching: The Willoughbys’ peculiar house is a character in itself — and you’ll wish the film occasionally slowed the heck down so we could appreciate it a little more.

Memorable Dialogue: Mom Willoughby shows affection for her husband by saying vile stuff like “Ohhh schmoopsie buns!” (Be thankful we’re not privy to what she says when they’re in the act of conceiving unwanted offspring.)

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Emotional abuse? Kids wishing death on their parents? Ricky Gervais? What grim and blighted fun! Granted, it sounds more bleak in concept than execution, but the darkness is present, a coursing river of deadly molten lava just waiting to erupt should a hole be poked in the movie’s colorful shellacked veneer, or something. The Gervais cat warns us early, if we like stories where everything ends happily, “This isn’t the film for you,” he purrs, which is sort of a warning, but also sort of a lie.

As these things so often go, the Willoughby children exist in a wildly imaginative visual playground at the service of a frowzy message about family being more about who you love and who loves you than who you share DNA with. The Willoughbys is just a little more funereal at its heart and on the fringes than most, although it mostly exists in the playful place between those two dark places.

And then there’s all that inexplicability. It’s almost as if Pearn and co-director Rob Lodermeier — adapting a Lemony Snicketesque book by Lois Lowry — compensate for the dark stuff by throwing in lots of zany stuff, which ends up being filler stuff tossed into the plot like miscellaneous candy in a kid’s Halloween sack. The gags and edits zing by lickety-split, and the story’s emotional hooks never really set. It’s mostly fun, and plot points addressing neglect and death will probably ricochet right off less discerning viewers (read: young’uns).

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Willoughbys‘ visual looniness will moderately engage most families, but it isn’t likely to beg repeat viewings. It plays several odd chords, which is refreshing, but discordant jazz ain’t everybody’s bag, you know?

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream The Willoughbys on Netflix