Arco, written and directed by Ugo Bienvenu, is split between two distant futures.Courtesy of NEON/Supplied
Arco
Directed by Ugo Bienvenu
Written by Ugo Bienvenu and Félix de Givry
Featuring the voices of Mark Ruffalo, Natalie Portman and Will Ferrell
Classification PG; 89 minutes
Opens in select theatres Jan. 30
Critic’s Pick
It is a strange time for animated features. Pixar seems stuck in a creative rut. Once-sterling brands have been cast off by their corporate parents, such as the case with Warner Bros. Discovery and Looney Tunes. Netflix is ruling the world with KPop Demon Hunters, but seems allergic to putting the film on the big screen in a wide-scale capacity, which would not only endear the streamer to countless children but also their parents looking for outside-the-house weekend relief. But in the margins, as always, there is stubborn hope.
Take the case of the charming and inventive new French film Arco, which is getting a long-awaited North American, English-dub release this weekend after winning over audiences on the festival circuit – and, crucially, scoring an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature (where it will almost certainly lose to KPop, but hey, points for trying).
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Singular in vision and origin – the film isn’t based on any pre-existing material like a comic book or children’s book, which is almost unheard of these days – Arco is split between two distant futures. The film’s opening few minutes take place in the year 2932, where the 10-year-old boy Arco (voiced by Juliano Krue Valdi) yearns to travel back in time like his parents – apparently by this point in humanity’s arc, time travel is an educational pastime with no consequences (somebody hand these people a copy of Ray Bradbury’s A Sound of Thunder). Anyway, after disobeying his family’s orders, Arco travels back to the year 2075, where he meets the similarly aged Iris (Romy Fay), who is dealing with her own issues of parental neglect.
The two children form an immediate bond, one that is tested by the fact that Arco’s time-travel suit is malfunctioning, and that he is also being pursued by a trio of bumbling conspiracy theorists (voiced, with gentle idiocy, by Will Ferrell, Andy Samberg and the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bassist and sometimes actor Flea). As Arco and Iris try to help repair each other’s domestic lives, writer-director Ugo Bienvenu crafts a colourful, vibrant and enjoyably challenging tale of optimism in the face of an unknown future.
Neither Arco’s nor Iris’s worlds will feel familiar to 2026 audiences, yet they are not the kind of postapocalyptic visions moviegoers are so used to staring down, either. There are problems, and there are solutions – as in Iris’s timeline, where emotionally-sensitive robots seem to do everything from manual labour to raising children (her household robot is aurally embodied by mixing the voices of her absent mother and father, played by Natalie Portman and Mark Ruffalo). By mixing the styles of Japanese animation a la Studio Ghibli (My Neighbor Totoro) and French animator Jean Giraud (a.k.a. Mœbius), Bienvenu and his team create a world (or worlds, rather) that are eerie yet inviting, strange but comforting.
And make no mistake: Arco’s ending will leave you in a puddle of tears. Your move, Pixar.