Laika, the Portland, Oregon-based stop motion animation studio, has never had an out-of-the-box commercial smash. Their first two films,Henry Selick's "Coraline" and the delicate "ParaNorman," were critically adored, but neither opened above the number three slot on their debut weekends (both went on to earn over $100 million worldwide). Maybe it was the wickedly dark, supernatural subject matter, or the fact that the animation style, a combination of the cutting edge and creaky, is out of fashion, with audiences still preferring the shiny blandness of CGI. Their third feature "The Boxtrolls" feels like the studio's surest bid towards mainstream acceptance, which is weird considering it's also the studio's most confrontationally strange. And we mean that in a good way.
"The
Boxtrolls" is ostensibly based on a small sliver of Alan Snow's loopy children's book "Here Be Monsters," and concerns the titular characters who leave their
subterranean dwelling to dig for odds and ends left behind in the
pseudo-Victorian town of Cheesebridge. Some of the human inhabitants, among
them a gentleman of high standing (Jared Harris), feel threatened by the boxtrolls,
especially after a young boy goes missing. While most of the town assumes the
boxtrolls ate him, the boy is in fact an orphan, and they raise him as one of
their own. They call him Eggs (Isaac Hempstead-Wright from "Game of Thrones") and teach him how to become a
proper boxtroll, but when an out-of-control exterminator (languidly voiced by Ben Kingsley) threatens to exterminate the boxtrolls
for good, Eggs has to leave his new underground home behind or watch it
disappear completely.
At first,
it's impossible not to simply marvel at the world that Laika has created (under
the surefooted direction of Graham Annable andAnthony Stacchi). Early in the movie, the boxtrolls
escape from the sewers and scamper around in the human world, their eyes
burning like warm embers. The characters are designed like oil paintings, with
streaky smudges of color dotting their skin and with large, expressive
features, the best of which belong to a young human girl named Winnie (voiced
by Elle Fanning) who assists Eggs in his quest. The
boxtrolls' environment resemble Pythonesque doodles, and the whole town is
perched on the top of a cliff, suggesting German expressionism and the work of Tim Burton all at once. And by the time the movie
reaches its bombastic climax, the filmmakers have judiciously folded in
elements of steampunk and gross-out horror. It's truly unlike anything you've
ever seen before, which is striking given especially the film's intended
audience are kids. The movie goes to some truly dark and occasionally
terrifying places, and just like any good movie about monsters, it's not the
creatures who are the most fearsome; it's the humans that are really chilling.
But as visually
dazzling as "The Boxtrolls" is, it's also pretty thematically
profound. When the first teaser for the film was released, it noted that there
are many different types of families, including some led by same-sex parents.
And the most touching and affecting moments of the film come after the
introduction, when scenes between Eggs and his boxtroll parents Fish and Shoe
unfold organically.
The
closeness between the characters is heartwarming and unique: not for a moment
do you think about the two boxtrolls being male (or another species
altogether). While it's easy to associate boxtrolls with homosexuals, the movie
has grander ambitions: it's not just about homosexual parents, but any kind of
family unit that defies societal "norms." We can't wait until Fox News and similarly conservative outlets decide
to pick the film apart for its assault on family values when, in fact, it is
just reinforcing those selfsame values in new and unexpected ways. "The
Boxtrolls" suggests that challenging children's preconceived notion of
gender roles and family dynamics at an earlier age will help them become better
people, and it's hard to disagree. That's just one way to read "The
Boxtrolls," as some have drawn comparisons between the film's plot
(concerning a megalomaniacal power's attempt to wipe a
marginalized race off the face of the earth, in a film set in Europe,
no less) and the atrocities of World War II. Essentially, there are more than a
few ways to unpack the themes.
There are a
few stumbles along the way, and "The Boxtrolls" succeeds almost
exclusively in its inner layers (as opposed to its narrative cohesiveness).
Nothing makes a whole lot of sense in "The Boxtrolls;" it operates in
its own topsy-turvy internal logic. There's lots of talk of cheese and hats and
giant mechanized monsters, which can be ultimately somewhat unsatisfying. The
film's pacing could have used some refinement —with a movie filled with this
much stuff, the lulls could have been better
calibrated and more evenly spread out. And an attempt to weave in some kind of
backstory concerning Eggs and his wacky inventor father (played by Simon Pegg) ultimately falls flat. Since the entire
movie is about a young boy's relationship with his boxtroll buddies, the idea
of forcing a sentimentalized family reunion is grosser than what happens to
Kingsley's character when he eats cheese (it's not pretty).
Whether or
not "The Boxtrolls" signals Laika's big breakthrough obviously
remains to be seen, but that doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme. Their
films are esoteric wonders that fully defy the general etiquette of animated
features —they're loose, wild and barely contained. But they're also incredibly
emotional, beautiful and resonant. "The Boxtrolls" is charming, with
a gorgeous animation style that combines lo-fi with high-tech (the puppets were
printed using 3D printers), with the huggable nature of the characters, and
with the boldness of its storytelling and thematic concerns. With any luck,
there's probably a little boxtroll in all of us.
