Ren Hanami | Through the Shattered Lens

In 1995, an 11 year-old boy named Orion (voiced by Jacob Tremblay) lives in Philadelphia.

He has two loving parents. He lives in a nice house. He has his fist crush, on his classmate Sally (voiced by Shino Nakamichi). He has a bully (voiced by Jack Fisher) who enjoys giving him a hard time and he has several notebooks full of his thoughts and drawings. He also has a lot of fears.

Indeed, it’s his fears that largely define Orion. Some of his fears are understandable. I don’t like wasps or murder clowns either. Some of his other fears are a bit more elaborate. He’s scared of his bully but he’s even more scared of fighting his bully because he might accidentally break the bully’s nose and drive a piece of bone into the bully’s brain, therefore killing him. His biggest fear, however, is his fear of the Dark.

In fact, Orion spends so much time talking about how much he hates the dark and how scared he is of the dark that Dark (Paul Walter Hauser) appears to him in human form and explain that he’s getting tired of Orion blaming him for anything. Dark takes Orion with him as he travels across the world, bringing darkness to various countries and overseeing various other elements, like Sweet Dreams (Angela Bassett), Unexplained Noises (Golda Rosheuvel), Insomnia (Nat Faxon), Quiet (Aparna Nancherla), and Sleep (Natasia Demetriou). Dark shows Orion that there’s no need to scared of the dark and that everyone involved is just doing their job. Orion comes to understand and appreciate Dark but, when he makes the mistake of saying that he still kind of likes Light (voice by Ike Barinholtz) better, it leads to a lot of hurt feelings and resignations….

If this sounds a bit weird, one should keep in mind that the story is being told by the adult Orion (voiced by Colin Hanks) to his daughter, Hypathia (Mia Akemi Brown). Adult Orion is telling the story to help Hypathia deal with her own fears and it soon becomes obvious that he’s making it up as he goes along. Hypathia is aware of this and has no hesitation about calling out the stuff that doesn’t make any sense. And when Orion proves incapable of coming up with a satisfactory ending for his story, Hypathia jumps into the story herself in an attempt to bring it all to a proper conclusion. But once she’s in the story, can she get back out?

Orion and the Dark may sound like a standard “conquer your fears and believe in yourself” animated film but the script was written by Charlie Kaufman and, in typical Kaufman fashion, the story is full of twists and turns and more than a few moments of commentary on the whole act of storytelling itself. There’s actually a lot going on in Orion and the Dark, with the film ultimately becoming a tribute to the power of imagination and to all of the parents-turned-storytellers in the world.

I’m a bit notorious for crying while watching animated films and I will say that Orion and the Dark brought tears to my eyes more than a few times. It’s an incredibly sweet movie, one that can be appreciated by both children and adults. It’s a movie about not just conquering fears but also using those fears to make oneself stronger. The final message is that light cannot exist without the dark and vice versa but that’s okay. There’s much to love in the light but the dark can be lovable too. Fear is a part of life but it’s not the only part of life.

Creatively-animated and featuring a strong cast of voice actors, Orion and the Dark is definitely one to check out.

Up in Michigan, Emily (Midori Francis) is a doctor who has been kidnapped by her psychotic ex-boyfriend, Charlie (Michael Patrick Lane). Charlie takes her to a cabin in the woods, where he ties her up and brags about the revenge that he’s going to take on her. Emily manages to break free and temporarily incapacitate Charlie but, in the process, she breaks her glasses. Nearly blind, Emily stumbles out into the wilderness. Despite not knowing where she is and not being able to see more than a few inches in front of her, Emily has to find her way back to civilization before Charlie finds her.

Down in Florida, Sam (Jolene Purdy) arrives for another day of work at a gas station where she spends most of her time dealing with a broken Slurpee machine. From the start, it’s not a good day, with a rich woman named Carol (Missi Pyle) demanding a refund just because she accidentally put the cheapest brand of fuel into her BMW. Sam finds herself looking down at the card that she has from the suicide prevention hotline and we immediately know that Sam is not happy with her life. Then, suddenly, her phone rings.

Emily and Sam don’t know each other but when Emily tries to use her phone to call for help, Sam is the one who ends up getting the call. Once Sam realizes that Emily is being stalked by her murderous ex, Sam agrees to become Emily’s eyes through video call. Sam guides Emily through the woods, keeping her informed of whether or not Charlie is nearby. Along the way, they talk about their different lives and how they came to be in their current situations. Sam gives Emily the strength to keep fighting for her survival while Emily gives Sam a reason to keep on living. And while Emily is having to constantly deal with Charlie and his attempts to re-capture her, Sam has to deal with things like exploding slushee machines, a dying phone battery, and eventually Carol and an apparently insane (and heavily armed) man who appears to be her husband.

Unseen is a bit of a disjointed film. The scenes in Michigan are very serious and very intense, with Emily suffering serious injury as she flees from Charlie. At one point, Emily begs Sam to call her mom so that Emily can say goodbye to her and it’s a genuinely emotional scene. At the same time, the scenes in Florida are often broadly comedic, with Sam sliding across the floor and, at one point, locking herself behind bullet-proof glass while Carol and her husband, who is dressed like a yacht captain, scream at her to come out. The tonal shifts between the two locations can be a bit jarring but the film is still effective, largely due to the sincerity of the performances of Midori Francis and Jolene Purdy. Their friendship feels real and it’s hard not to get a little misty-eyed at the film’s final moments.

Unseen deserves a lot of credit for only being 76 minutes long. It tells its story quickly and without any unnecessary padding. This is a film that does not waste any time getting to the point and, in this time when even the simplest of genre films will often run for more than two hours, it’s hard not appreciate the nicely paced efficiency of Unseen.