Already a candidate for 2024’s surprise hit, Orion and the Dark turns what could easily have been a sweet but simple family-friendly muck and transforms it into a moving tale about insecurity, dependency, and time. This is largely thanks to Charlie Kaufman, who gives director Sean Charmatz a wonderful story to work with, and the pair work together to generate that most rare of treasures: a child-friendly film that deals with the heavy stuff well.
On paper, this is the story of eleven-year-old Orion meeting the spiritual embodiment of darkness, who then takes him on a journey to help him beat his fear of the dark. Yet the film manages to offer so much more than this, deftly presenting fear as something that you grow around rather than grow out of. This message is brought to life with colourful blends of 2D and 3D animation that, while not rivalling the best in the business, are still wonderfully expressive. That Orion and the Dark has so much to offer both visually and emotionally belies its source material: the 40-page preschool book of the same name by Emma Yarlett.
Jacob Tremblay effortlessly makes young Orion a likeable hero, but Paul Walter Hauser steals the show with a larger-than-life performance as Dark. At once able to swap from infectious excitement to feeling like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders, Hauser makes Dark the story’s highlight. Meanwhile, Kaufman has crafted a world for Orion and Dark, which has nuance and detail in spades, an amazing change of pace for those who agree that kids deserve great stories, too.
ORION AND THE DARK is available on Netflix.
