Director: Carlos Saldanha
Writers: David Guion, Michael Handelman
Stars: Zachary Levi, Lil Rel Howery, Jemaine Clement

Synopsis: Inside of his book, adventurous Harold can make anything come to life simply by drawing it. After he grows up and draws himself off the book’s pages and into the physical world, Harold finds he has a lot to learn about real life.

The adaptation of Harold and the Purple Crayon has finally made its way to a cinema near you. Adapting a beloved children’s book always comes with high expectations, especially in a genre that often struggles to think outside the box. Creating a movie for children, let alone one that appeals to the entire family, is a challenging task.

Typically, films in this genre play it safe, incorporating some bathroom humor for good measure. They often rely on bright, flashy special effects and G-rated antics, with just enough of a story to engage the adults. So, when it was announced that Sony was developing a live-action adaptation of Harold and the Purple Crayon, I hoped it might break free from the standard studio formula. 

Unfortunately, the film leans too heavily on the simplicity of the children’s classic and misses the original work’s creativity. Instead, we’re bombarded with endless filler scenes featuring prominent product placements—think Coca-Cola, Chick-fil-A, Sabrett Hot Dogs, and more. 

However, while I highly recommend washing down a great chicken sandwich and beefy hot dog with some great American company’s cola goodness (feel free to reach out to InSession Film so we can fulfill any Fortune 500 companies’ product placement needs), the overzealousness detracts from an already bland and predictable experience. 

The story is intended not as a direct adaptation but as a sequel to the book series. Zachary Levi plays the titular character, Harold, who draws himself out of the pages and into the real world in search of “the old man,” his creator and father. Accompanied by his friends Moose (Lil Rel Howery) and Porcupine (Tanya Reynolds), Harold meets Terri (Zooey Deschanel) and her young son, Mel (Benjamin Bottani). Their relationship is hard to fathom and never feels earned throughout the film.

Directed by Carlos Saldanha, known for the successful animated Ice Age and Rio franchises, and scripted by David Guion and Michael Handelman (the team behind Slumberland, Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, and Dinner for Schmucks), the film struggles with creativity. The script spends too much time avoiding meaningful connections between the live-action characters and the real world.

The big moment the movie builds towards, where Levi’s character is eager to meet “the old man,” feels more like an infomercial for Crockett Johnson’s classic children’s series. Every interaction remains as thin and two-dimensional as the characters themselves. While Levi channels his “adorkable” persona and a youthful Tom Hanks charm effectively, the role doesn’t allow him to connect with the heart of the matter that comes with knowing who you are and what you want to be. 

That’s where Harold and the Purple Crayon misses the mark. The opportunity to explore themes of growth, learning, and identity is nowhere to be found. Family entertainment should thrive on these themes, addressing real existential issues and the consequences of actions. Unlike films like Elf, Enchanted, and even Bruce Almighty, which combine comedy and heart to teach thoughtful lessons, This adaptation fails to use Harold’s magic crayon to impart lessons about individuality, reality, or social norms.

Moreover, the “real world” characters teach counterproductive lessons to children, such as using cell phones while driving and picking up hitchhikers without concern. Even though it’s a children’s movie, responsibility in storytelling is crucial, especially when the adaptation strays from the essence of the source material. For instance, should we allow two strange men to live in our home with the young child you just met who is acting as if they need help from a mental health professional? 

The script even fails to make a flimsy excuse for allowing such an action, like almost hitting them with their car, which would be comedically plausible. It’s unfortunate, as Harold and the Purple Crayon had the potential to be a film about limitless possibilities. Some of the special effects can be fun but don’t seem to add a purpose other than to catch the eye. They are hollow. They lack engagement. 

To strengthen my point, at the screening I attended, you tend to pay attention to when children laugh and are engaged. However, most of the young audience members were talking and playing in the row or on the stairs because the movie was tepid and lacked real humor, heart, and engagement.

Harold and the Purple Crayon is nothing more than buying a piece of intellectual property as if you are buying a brand-name label and putting it on a cheap imitation. 

Grade: D+

Director: Eugene Kotlyarenko
Writers: Eugene Kotlyarenko
Stars: Peter Vack, Dasha Nekrasova, Ivy Wolk

Synopsis: Follows the misadventures of a sexless couple, as their relationship falls into shambles in the early part of the pandemic.

Writer/director Eugene Kotlyarenko blew away the Fantasia scene after his 2020 film Spree both shocked and enthralled (virtual) festivalgoers, eventually becoming one of the year’s most talked-about films when it was released. With his latest movie, The Code, the filmmaker attempts to represent the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of aspiring documentarian Celine (Dasha Nekrasova) and her boyfriend Jay (Peter Vack) as they make a movie on the effects of the pandemic.

This premise seems rife for a potent exploration of how our culture’s reaction to the COVID crisis led to online chaos, especially regarding people who don’t necessarily think the virus is that big of a threat to themselves. The film certainly presents Celine and Jay’s views on COVID-19 this way, mocking people who wear masks in their cars, unafraid of shaking a stranger’s hand, and taking absolutely zero precautions on attempting to avoid catching the virus. Of course, this film is set in the earlier days of the pandemic and with much of the knowledge on COVID still unknown, this self-centered behavior is a topic that hasn’t been explored in any movie that dealt with the reality of the pandemic so far. 

Like Spree, Kotlyarenko uses the digital world to represent the alienation of Celine and Jay’s relationship during COVID, creating a wholly unique texture through hidden cameras, Zoom, FaceTime, GoPros, drones, 360 cameras, text screenshots, and, of course, plain ol’ Sony XDCams. The language constantly refines itself and keeps trying to find new ways to showcase how the couple’s sexless relationship is driving them apart during the pandemic. I especially love how Kotlyarenko constantly reminds us that the film we’re watching is a meta-narrative even in its more sweeping moments. 

He always points the cameras in obvious directions and continuously shows us how a scene is pulled off. This, in turn, makes its meta-narrative far more involving than if it was purely shown to us inside Celine’s diegesis. But we keep seeing the creative process in front of us, which, in turn, gives us more reason to be immersed in the film the ‘creators’ are making. However, Kotlyarenko makes the cardinal mistake of replacing a potent commentary on how façades are created within Celine’s digitized world with hollow provocation that is deeply offensive, trite, and unfunny. 

Kotlyarenko did the same thing with Spree, but he at least had something to say on how online culture encourages exploitation. In the case of The Code, he expands upon Spree’s thesis by stating that online culture encourages exploitation, artificiality, and alienation. Yet, he never tries to explore this thesis with a culturally-averse lens, even if he utilizes TikTok filters, and rapid editing techniques worthy of influencer culture to showcase how low culture has become. Yes, our culture is at an all-time low: scientific literacy is being scoffed by people who believe online gurus, either from the anti-vaccine or the Zero COVID crowd, influencers have now a bigger control over their fanbase and can make them do whatever they want, and egotism is now at the center of most people’s belief systems. 

Kotlyarenko showcases how truly clueless these chronically online people are, and he did get a chuckle out of me when one of Celine’s friends says that “COVID’s the big thing. I’m sure it’s gonna be a big hit.” Of course, Celine’s goal isn’t to make movie on COVID, per se, but to capitalize on the human tragedy of the crisis for her personal gain. In one scene, she interviews a woman whose father is about to pass away from the disease. Rather than sympathize with her and feel compassion, Celine and Jay film her until she breaks down so hard she is hitting herself on the glass. It’s all about exploitation and artificiality, never about compassion. 

And yet, with such a powerful commentary on how online culture alienates and distorts, Kotlyarenko never delves deep enough for us to care about anything he’s saying because, beyond the provocative scenes of Jay attempting to get Celine to say the N-word (as he wants to show how problematic of a person she is) or one where they visit an escape room, he has nothing of interest to say about any of the themes and characters he presents. How does Celine perceive the COVID crisis beyond the façade she wants to create for her documentary? How does Jay perceive the crisis and his relationship with Celine? Kotlyarenko explores these questions at a surface but never gives us the keys to interpret his answers since his characters are stuck in a cyclical rut of underdevelopment at every turn. 

It also doesn’t help that Dasha’s performance is truly risible and never in tune with the self-ironic tone Kotlyarenko adopts through his aesthetic (and silly music). She’s nowhere near the level of emotional complexity Ilinca Manolache brought to the screen as Bobita in Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of The World, a satire with a biting edge that had something to say, not only on COVID, but on how online culture is a deeply artificial façade that is never indicative of the real-life alienation Angela experienced beyond her Bobita avatar. 

We don’t get the same personal detachment in The Code, because it’s all artificial. Perhaps this was the point, but it gets rather trite and irritating quite fast. Instead of having the opportunity of saying something, anything, about how online culture has made discussions on COVID completely impossible to assimilate, Kotlyarenko fills his movie with as many vapid provocations as possible in the hopes to get strong reactions out of the audience. 

Perhaps it did play well at Fantasia, but the lack of interest in exploring anything it presents completely killed the momentum its opening scene built up. Even with a reverse Radu Jude handwritten credits from Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (end credits inside the digital environment Celine and Jay created as opposed to going back to the traditional, primal roots of cinema), Kotlyarenko’s movie will never hold weight to the impeccable satire Jude drew on how society’s enshittification will lead all of us to our doom. 

Grade: D-

Director: Chris Skotchdopole
Writers: Chris Skotchdopole, Larry Fessenden, Rigo Garay
Stars: Rigo Garay, Ella Rae Peck, Lorraine Farris, and John Speredakos

Synopsis: A newlywed couple is held captive in a remote lake house by a maniacally optimistic inventor and his sour wife who are desperate to finance his dream project with a half-baked blackmail plot.

Shane Castillo (Rigo Garay) and Leah (Ella Rae Peck) are posing for their wedding photographs. The photographer is asking them questions to get them into the mood for romantic shots. “How did you meet?” “What do you do?” Leah says proudly of Shane that he’s an author. She’s a publisher. “She works for me,” he jokes. “What do you write?” Nothing has been published yet, but Shane has written a “father and son” story. “It’s a bit more than that,” Leah exclaims and begins to tell the photographer about an author who wrote a bestseller called ‘Undocumented.’ She keeps talking to the photographer about literature and an upcoming article in the American Literature Critique. Shane’s eyes wander away from his bride to the bar. He’s looking for an escape route. One that becomes more pressing for him when his mother-in-law steps in asking for some “respectable” photographs of the couple (read more WASP friendly).

Whatever happened overnight at the Crystal Views hotel and wedding venue, one thing is certain – it didn’t involve a romantic night for the couple. Shane wakes up still in his wedding suit and immensely hung over. Leah is trying to just get them out of there and on their way to their actual honeymoon in a remote upstate cabin. Something which is delayed by the arrival of John Spinelli (John Speredakos), one of the cater waiters from the function room knocking on the window of Shane’s 1978 Cutlass. John’s apologizing for losing the couple’s cake topper and handing them champagne. He’s also making distinctly racist and sexist comments which Shane politely takes in while Leah, who was cornered by him before, cuts off as quickly as she can. It’s the kind of interaction no one particularly wants – not just because it comes from a middle-aged waiter sweating a certain desperate discontent, but more because extricating oneself from the situation requires polite dismissal at best, and rudeness being more effective.

On the road to the cabin, Shane and Leah go through what seems to be how their five-year-relationship has settled into. They love each other but there is a certain level of resentment rearing its head. “I can’t believe my mother talked me into the wedding!” Leah sighs after dealing with her not so savory relations. “We should have eloped,” Shane replies. Generally, that would be a couple on the same page, but something is off between them. They want to be married but they don’t want it that way. Leah capitulating to her family’s wishes annoys Shane. Shane not acknowledging the effort put in by her family annoys Leah. A deeper level of discontent surfaces when Shane’s father calls him, and Leah flashes a look of disdain at the number. 

Shane’s father, an inveterate alcoholic, is the subject of his soon to be published book. Everything that Shane is now is based on his decision to turn his past into literary fodder for people he believes want stories from ‘street level’ without ever having to interact with ‘the street.’ His father wasn’t invited to the wedding, but his life is the meal ticket making his name. The cabin they are headed to belongs to Leah’s boss. Shane’s shiny new life with Leah comes with him exploiting and negating his Latino identity. Any feelings of guilt he has about that he’s projecting on to Leah. He’s also projecting his own anxiety about being only interesting because he has, or had, a gangsta swagger.

While Leah is trying to support Shane and is legitimately excited about the work he has done, he is becoming less sure that it belongs to him. When Leah says that it is something they have worked on together (which as his publishing agent is true) he snaps back that she doesn’t own any of the story. The book is the symbolic object which is dividing them more than it is bringing them together.

Leah and Shane get precious little time to tear strips off each other as soon they get an unexpected visit from John Spinelli who has driven hours to deliver their cake topper. Leah rightly wants to know how he knew where they were. He was added to the family Facebook group. He comes with his exhausted wife, Rose (Lorraine Farris) and an offer for the ‘rich people’ to help an entrepreneur out. Leah simply wants John and Rose to leave and is confused as to why Shane is being welcoming with the couple. Shane has his reasons – reasons which reveal him to be far less upstanding than he would like to believe.

Chris Skotchdopole switches from believable relationship drama into a dark hurdy-gurdy of black comedy theatrics which gets more desperate as each moment passes. The uninvited guests ensure they get their foot in the door and once there, they’re not going to leave without something. Why is John Spinelli there? Because he has an investment opportunity and a product pitch he’s going to deliver whether anyone likes it or not (and it’s clear even Rose doesn’t like it). Ladies and Gentlemen – please be seated while Spinelli Enterprises presents the Crumb Catcher.

The Crumb Catcher is an object of no conceivable worth to anyone except John Spinelli. What is it? In effect it doesn’t matter what it is because it is an auratic gesture to a time which never really existed. The Crumb Catcher is a lovingly designed mid-century modern table broom. Tired of waiters interrupting your romantic dinner by cleaning crumbs off your table? The solution is here! You can clean the crumbs off yourself and not have to interact with the lowly servers. It’s about to revolutionize fine dining and Leah and Shane have a chance to be in on the ground floor with an investment of 25 thousand dollars.

The Crumb Catcher is, of course, absurd. However, John Spinelli is deadly serious. Years of chasing the American dream and failing have left him on the edge of madness. “What happened to the middle class?” he opines. When did America stop rewarding innovation and invention? When did America stop caring about the guy who is ready to pull himself up by his bootstraps with hard work and a dream? John Spinelli is a man trying to provide for his wife and her kid. He’s the good guy! It’s elites like Leah who have overlooked him for years who should pay attention, but worse, it’s “thugs” like Shane who have leapfrogged him on the social scale. 

Chris Skotchdopole, in conjunction with Larry Fessenden and Rigo Garay on script duties, uses an absurd and increasingly odd situation to ask some pertinent questions about American anxieties. Both Shane and John have fraught and dysfunctional pasts (what John hints at is extremely dark) and while one is questioning the validity of his upward social mobility and acting to sabotage it, the other is questioning why social mobility is on a downwards slope for him (assuming there was ever an upwards slope). 

Joe Spinelli prefers the 1950s – a time where life was better. Better for whom? The picket fencers? Even John Spinelli’s delusions can’t go so far to think he’d ever have been one of them. It’s a familiar cry from those who feel disenfranchised to believe that there was some magical version of the past where they would have flourished. John Spinelli wants the apple pie America where his manhood is never questioned. Where he doesn’t have to stew in the reality that he’s married to a woman who doesn’t love him nor respect him and is tethered to him only because of her own desperation. 

Shane has been waiting for the moment when someone points at him and shouts, “Fraud!” The fact that it comes from such an anomic and sweaty lifetime loser like Spinelli compounds his tragedy. The horror trappings are used skilfully – a home invasion, an increasingly dangerous man whose disappointments become sadistic, the inexorable defeat, and the knowledge at the end that if somehow these men had managed to rein in their insecurities, they wouldn’t have become destroyers.

Crumb Catcher is incredible. Tense, bitterly funny, cruel, and humane. Chris Skotchdopole gathers his people – Garay, Peck, Speredakos, and Farris onscreen and a wealth of indie legends behind it and makes a movie that is brutal and bizarre. Skotchdopole’s bleak carnival ride of failure is an American nightmare and panic attack. You’ll never forget Crumb Catcher.

Grade: A