Swiss Family Robinson was prime time family watching for me back in the day, a family island adventure with a bit of Home Alone thrown in. Apparently this movie was also apparently BBC material too, because Michael Morpurgo takes pieces of it and put it in his 1999 novel, Kensuke’s Kingdom. 25 Years Later, Neil Boyle, Kirk Hendry, and Frank Cottrell-Boyce, pool their creative resources together and finally adapt Morpurgo’s novel, for everyone to enjoy in a new medium. A glorious, moving, new medium.
Kensuke (Ken Watanbe) will come later, but the story starts with Michael (Aaron MacGregor) and his family. Mum (Sally Hawkins) and Dad (Cillian Murphy) hit their midlife crisis, and decide it’s time to take Michael and sister Becky (Raffey Cassidy) on a boat, and sail across the world, making memories along the way. After Michael tries to help the family dog Stella, who he snuck on board, during a thunderstorm, Michael is thrown overboard. He and Stella wash up on a supposedly deserted island, having to grow up from the 11 year old boy to an adult real fast, and find some food and water real fast. Things go very poorly, until one day Michael wakes up to see some food and water on plates near where he’s sleeping…
The story translation from novel to movie has its fits and starts, but is mostly faithful and powerful enough. The movie goes for more a more kid friendly approach, probably the right decision. As such, we get more time with Michael, which is a roller coaster (he’s pretty insufferable until he meets Kensuke); more importantly, the movie wants us in and out in 90 minutes. As a result, the evolution of Kensuke and Michael’s relationship is considerably adapted. A key part of Kensuke’s backstory is changed and more importantly, their timeline together is shorter, so we only focus on them trying to communicate despite speaking two different languages. Those changes keep the essence of the novel’s relationship, just in a shorter, different way that most kids will hopefully figure out. And the results are still wonderfully poignant and powerful, especially if you’re around 10 years old.
Faring much better though is the book to movie translation. The movie’s animation is quite simply: breathtaking. Someone told the animators: I want this movie to feel like pages of the book were put on screen and could move. To do that, the animators went old school: this is a 2d, hand drawn film, like all those Disney movies from the 1990s. Each background feels like an Ansel Adams painting, majestic and still while we’re on the sea, or on the beach, or in every 10 year old’s fantasy of a treehouse, overlooking a sunrise. And even when we’re deep in connecting with Michael and Kensuke, we get different animation visuals, like a succinct, beautiful, sad, 3 minute montage look into Kensuke’s past and how he ended up in this remote place. All this hard work building Kensuke’s Kingdom’s look really makes it feel like we’re in Michael’s memory, as he vividly tells this story probably to his kids or grandkids.
So if you’re a parent, and you’re tired of some talking dog speaking in puns and farting to try to make your 10 year old laugh, maybe buy a ticket and enter Kensuke’s Kingdom. It’s that leveled movie that will work great for your child, and work on a different level for you, which you can both talk about after the movie is over. Hopefully leading your kid on the path to more interesting films forever and ever, leaving dumb stuff like “Farting Dog 3” in the dust, forever and ever.