Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Orion and the Dark’ on Netflix, an Endearing Family Movie From the Unlikely Pen of Charlie Kaufman

Orion and the Dark (now on Netflix) boasts one heck of a what-the-heck hook: It’s an animated adaptation of a children’s picture book written by Charlie Kaufman, whose distinct brand of melancholy existentialism has produced neo-cinema classics such as Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and I’m Thinking of Ending Things. Kaufman doesn’t direct – that’s up to first-timer Sean Charmatz – but his neuroticism is visible in this family-oriented film about a boy who’s nigh-terminally afraid of, well, nearly everything, and most notably the dark, and obviously needs to find a way to overcome his fears. Or at least learn to live with them, which is a more enlightened way of tackling one’s psycho-foibles. Can Kaufman tell this story without introducing children to the deep pain and sadness of human existence? Possibly!

ORION AND THE DARK: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: His name is Orion (Jacob Tremblay), as in “oh, Ryan.” I don’t know how he gets through the day, being afraid of clogging the toilet at school and getting called on in class and talking to the girl he has a crush on and the school bully and haircuts and, and, and, and. He shares his overwhelming anxieties via an internal monologue that immediately characterizes him as a kid with some pretty universal fears, but with a distinctively paranoid twist, as if he possesses an almost-adult understanding of what rejection and humiliation can do to the psyche. He imagines worst-case scenarios like you or I might contemplate what sounds good for lunch. But nothing scares him more than the great unknown nothingness to be found in the dark – and that’s why he tries to stall at bedtime, prompting his sweet and caring parents (Carla Gugino and Matt Dellapina) to tell him that tackling a tombstone-sized David Foster Wallace novel as a bedtime story just isn’t tenable. 

So the lights go out for the night and Orion trembles like the last leaf on a tree facing the first burst of a winter squall. And who should turn up in his bedroom but the talking, reaper-cloaked Dark (Paul Walter Hauser), who looks like an ethereal XL gorilla with floating eyes and teeth beneath a hood, but he seems like a nice-enough guy. He even shows up with a documentary film that aims to explain the purpose of the dark to Orion, and it’s narrated by Werner Herzog because OF COURSE IT IS. Now, be careful what you say about the dark, especially since we’re aware it’s an anthropomorphized manifestation of the absence of light. Dark has feelings and insecurities too, you know.

Dark is also just persuasive and likable enough to cajole Orion into spending 24 hours with him as he flies around the the world, inspiring the denizens of Earth to flip on the lights and sleep and dream and, well, this being a kid flick, we won’t get into the more wet and/or violent things. So Orion hops on Dark’s back and off they go, with the bro-like Light (Ike Barnholtz) and his omnipresent sunglasses nipping at their heels, since you can’t have the yin without the yang spinning off awkwardly into the nether. Dark has some co-workers, fellow manifestations of nighttime conceptualizations: the elegant Sweet Dreams (Angela Bassett), jittery mosquito-like Insomnia (Nat Faxon), mousy Quiet (Aparna Nancherla), clattery Unexplained Noises (Gold Rosheuvel) and squishy Sleep (Natasia Demetriou). And it turns out this entire saga is being told by the adult Orion (Colin Hanks) to his daughter Hypatia (Mia Akemi Brown), which explains why young Orion lives in a reality with tube TVs and pagers. 

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Orion and the Dark is so Pixaresque, sometimes it feels like an Inside Out ripoff, or a feature-length expansion of the short Day and Night. 

Performance Worth Watching Hearing: Hauser nails the genial tone of Dark, who gives off some demigod vibes of Maui from Moana, but with less arrogance. The actor, whose voice I mistook for Seth Rogen with a slight tonal tweak, seems to be having a lot of fun with the role.

Memorable Dialogue: Or course, fun is something Orion is also seemingly allergic to: “Fun is just a word people made up to make danger sound appealing!”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Orion and the Dark takes some pretty compelling ideas about youthful anxiety and funnels them into a somewhat unfocused, overly busy adventure story padded with diversions and tangents, and couched in a self-referential narrative device that opens the door for meta-commentary. It’s a bit much, but you have to admire its ambition, and how Kaufman lends Orion’s fears heft and agency. Is it funny or sad that Orion is so afraid of everything? It could go either way, and credit the eccentric screenwriter for nurturing that ambiguity, and Charmatz for not letting it be eclipsed by standard-issue kid-flick themes (or washed out entirely by nervous studio execs). In reality, Orion would need a little therapy, but this being an animated movie, off we go into the wild black yonder, zooming through the clouds, although in this case the kid isn’t too sure about any of this (and I wonder how he isn’t afraid of a most common thing, very high heights). 

The film’s visuals are endearing; I didn’t see a single straight line or crisp angle in any of the set design, rendering Orion’s reality warm and inviting with a hand-crafted aesthetic and a dash of surrealism that only adults are likely to notice. But the story seems padded, a good central idea – culled from a thin picture book – stretched to include self-aware stuff about the nature of storytelling, and those way-too-Inside-Out side characters who are good for a few chuckles but are arguably unnecessary to the movie’s thematic intentions (e.g., jokes about how they need to “feel seen” despite being characters who exist wholly in darkness). Yet the primary lesson to be taken from Orion and the Dark is admirably unwavering, and wise: Conquering fear is unrealistic, a fool’s errand. But understanding it and learning how to live with it? That’s the truth that cuts through the noise.

Our Call: Orion and the Dark isn’t as tightly written or original as it could be. But it’s lovely to look at, and offers a substantive story for families to not just consume and forget, but provide a little food for thought. STREAM IT. 

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.