The Willoughbys

The Willoughbys – Four neglected siblings find a baby left outside their home in a box. When their parents lock them out of the house until the baby is gone, the children decide to orphan themselves and conspire to send their parents away on a long holiday fraught with lethal dangers. When a larger than life, friendly nanny comes to take care of them, eldest child, Tim is suspicious of her motives. Could Nanny be a genuinely kind person with the children’s best interests at heart, or is Tim right in thinking she’s no different from his terrible parents?

The Willoughbys (2020) – Director: Kris Pearn

By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61422261

Rating: PG

Running Length: 90 mins

Starring: Will Forte, Maya Rudolph, Alessia Cara, Terry Crews

Genre: Comedy

REVIEW: ‘THE WILLOUGHBYS’

‘The Willoughbys’ is a Netflix exclusive movie much in the same vein as Roald Dahl’s malicious dark humour. Adapted from a book of the same name by Lois Lowry, this Lemony Snicket-esque tale explores what to do when your parents love each other so much that they have no love left for you.

Such a plot requires larger than life characters and ‘The Willoughbys’ is full of them. Eldest child, Tim craves approval in any way from his abusive parents. His carefree sister, Jane, drops him in trouble by disregarding the rules. The movie also boasts not just a creepy set of twins, but twins both called Barnaby who action in almost perfect unison. Throw in a larger-than-life nanny, giant candy man, and ruthless agents of orphan services, and you’ve got a movie that is bubbling with ideas.

Although it is a CGI animated movie, ‘The Willoughbys’ dropped frame style is designed to look like stop-motion which gives everything a physical heft. The variety of colourful locals have a great lurching gothic art design throughout, even through the obsession for big bushy moustaches that runs throughout. And yet although the movie is chock full of sight gags and snappy dialogue, it also knows when to reign it back for some moments of levity on the nature of family. The overall parcel left on our doorsteps is a noisy one of chaos that, when it quietens down, makes the connection all the sweeter.

CONTENT: IS ‘THE WILLOUGHBYS’ SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN?

The narration at the beginning of the movie explains that the Willoughby’s loved each other so much that there was no room for anyone else, including their children. When the eldest baby is born, he is immediately taken away from his mother and held aloft by a tuft of hair and dropped unceremoniously onto the floor. Given the name Tim, the baby smiles innocently as he is told how unimportant he is, the father then walks away and back into the room with his wife, closing the door behind him,

The scene then cuts to several years later, Tim has a sister called Jane and twin brothers, both called Barnaby. They stare longingly at their parents enjoying a large meal, Jane says ‘I’m so hungry, I want to eat my own tongue!’. The children are told that the parents eat the good food while the kids eat yesterday’s, Tim despondently states that his parents ate all of yesterday’s food already so there is nothing left for them. When the other children misbehave, Tim is blamed and put in the coal bin (basement) which is dirty and has spiders in it.

After taking in the baby, it escapes and ends up in the room with the Willoughby parents leading to them becoming hysterical and the baby seemingly catapulted into the roaring fire. One of the Barnaby’s says ‘Roasted baby!’ before the baby is quickly seen alive and well elsewhere.

When the children decide that they want to orphan themselves, Tim asks Jane how she believes it’ll happen. She tells him to look over the road where he sees a butcher slam a cleaver down on a piece of meat. He shrieks but then she directs his attention to the other side of the road where he sees someone aggressively using a chainsaw. Believing Jane wants them to die violently, Tim is horrified but she is really directing his attention to a travel agent.

Creating their own travel plan, the children intend to trick their parents into a long vacation which will highly likely result in their deaths.

Struggling to provide for his siblings once the parents are gone, Tim produces what he calls a cheese plate. However this is a dead open-mouthed mouse in a trap which has mouldy cheese on it.

The Willoughby parents are seen enjoying their holiday while obliviously causing the deaths of various people in ways such as: a volcanic explosion; pushing someone into an acid lake; and causing someone to be eaten by piranhas.

Hoping to stop the sale of their home, the Willoughby children set a number of traps to put viewers off, including trap doors and sprung floors. No-one is deterred or hurt. However, later a red light and booming voice sends a family fleeing but this isn’t a trap laid by the children. Nervously investigating, they find their attic room lit only by candles. These candles go out by themselves, including the ones they are holding, a large creature swings out, scaring them but the creature is not what it seems.

A character is devastated to not be wanted.

Tim watches forlornly as his home is destroyed.

The children are helped to make a large dirigible to save their parents. A fat duck has a rope tied around its middle and hoisted on board. It becomes clear later that this duck is to be used as an anchor as it is dropped bodily onto the ground. Later, when the dirigible takes off again, it is dragged roughly through snow. It doesn’t appear to suffer.

When the children are left alone on a freezing cold mountain top, the story becomes bleak with no apparent help in sight. The siblings embrace each other as the snow builds up around them, then the scene goes black and the narrator cat walks onscreen saying ‘tragic’; but events change soon after.

CAN I SEE A CLIP?

VERDICT: IS ‘THE WILLOUGHBYS’ FOR KIDS?

”The Willoughbys’ main subject matter is on the blacker side of humour but this is never so bleak or nasty as to be inaccessible. With it’s quick fire gags and carefully seeded heart we would recommend that ‘The Willoughbys’ is suitable for ages 6 and up.

• Violence: 1/5 (Tim is thrown into the coal pit as punishment. Some casual deaths when the Willoughby parents are on vacation)
• Emotional Distress: 3/5 (lots of talk of orphans and not being wanted with several sad scenes)
• Fear Factor: 0/5
• Sexual Content: 0/5
• Bad Language: 0/5
• Dialogue: 1/5 (several callous lines of dialogue from the Willoughby parents about not wanting children)
• Other Notes: Deals with themes of adoption, orphans, child neglect, sticking together as a family, being suspicious of kindness from strangers, starvation, and looking after those who need your help.

Words by Michael Record and Laura Record