Slumberland is a movie that I chose randomly from my ever-growing Netflix list and every time I want to try to make a dent in the list I seem to always be adding more than removing.
Slumberland is a movie about a young single father bringing up his daughter in a lighthouse the young girl is being homeschooled while her dad the lighthouse keeper is making sure the ships are being navigated safely through the nighttime seas.
One dark stormy windy night while Nemo’s father is telling one of his nighttime adventure tales a distress call comes over the radio for a boat that needs help and Nemo’s father has to stop the story just as its getting to the scary crescendo and go deal with the boat in trouble and they both say goodnight and then off goes Nemo into Slumberland.
This is when we first get a glimpse of the magical dreamland of Slumberland directed by Francis Lawrence. Francis is the same director that bought you one of the biggest movie series ever told “The Hunger Games” Series and on top of this Francis has directed Jason Mamoa before in his tv series called “See” and just for some icing on the cake Francis has directed music videos as well for musical artists like Beyonce’s “Run the World (Girls), Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” and may more like Britney, Black Eyed Peas.
Nemo’s father is played by Kyle Chandler his character’s name is called Peter. Every time I watch Kyle Chandler in a movie it always seems to be a role with depth and meaning and I have not seen a bad movie of his yet which is a good thing I feel I keep his performances in high esteem. The last movie I saw with Kyle in it was the movie with Cate Blanchet called “Carol” another great movie.
Let’s talk about the young actress that plays Nemo she is Marlow Barkley. Marlow has played in movies like Spirited with Ryan Reynolds and Will Farell I have not seen that movie yet so I can not make a comment.
Marlow’s performance even though Slumberland is pointed to the family audience this movie is not simply for kids and Marlow deals with the adult-themed movie and subject matter to a level of professionalism and perfection that I have not seen since I would say Haley Joel Osment in the Sixth Sense and Mara Wilson in Mrs Doubtfire and even Matilda for that matter.
The only thing I would pick on Marlow about in this movie is Marlow’s character’s name. The character’s name is called “Nemo” and without doing research to find out the links and why her character’s name is called Nemo and this is because it is based on the comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay. As mentioned before I googled it and found out the above everytime I heard Nemo in the movie it reminded me of Finding Nemo and well the only two links the movies have is the amount of water and the links to the sea both movies have.
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The next performance and you can tell I actually enjoyed this movie although a movie for kids this is really an epic tale that is for the whole family to enjoy. India de Beaufort has a small but meaningful role in the movie playing Ms Arya Nemo’s school counsellor and well although India’s role is small it has meaning and does come full circle. India de Beaufort, you may have seen her in the remake of “The Night Court” “Kimi” I am sure after India’s performance in Slumberland she will get bigger roles.
Leslie Adlam now Leslie plays a Slumberland cop that is after Jason Momoa’s character Flip and well you could say Leslie that plays Agent Brown gives you exactly that feeling like you are watching “Men In Black” Agent Brown is Slumberland is dressed in seventies attire and its kinda strange that you got this dated look and then you have all the imagination of what the dreamland of Slumberland can be and is. Leslie’s role brings humour and even more heart to the film.
I have two performances to talk about and then I will get back to my final thoughts on the movie. Let’s get to Chris O’Dowd’s performance well at first when I was watching him it felt that his performance was kind of flat and when you realize the theme and depth Francis Lawrence was going for you actually understand why Chris plays the role flat and unsure and that is because being thrown into the deep end playing Philip Peter’s other brother and Nemo’s uncle he does not know how to deal with his feelings and struggles with the loss of his brother and their estranged relationship and now bringing up his niece.
To the point that while I was watching the movie, I was thinking I hope he has links to a computer as the role to what made him a household name in “The IT Crowd” and what do you know early on you see Chris as Phillip behind a computer searching “How to Parent” and What activities to play to build a bond with a younger family member. It’s good to see Chris doing so well and getting more deep roles and you can see he can do more than comedy and fixing computer problems. Chris’s performance is excellent and you do not have to reboot anything.
Now to the giant of the film and well from what I have seen he is a big man on screen The Aquaman himself Jason Momoa. Jason plays Flip a character Nemo meets in Slumberland and they go on an adventure for pearls to complete Flip’s journey and bring him back to the land of the living for this role I feel Jason did a great job being over the top when he needed to be and subdued and there for Nemo when she needed him.
Overall the cast really did a great job working well together and you can see how and why it all jelled together.
Let’s talk about the overall theme and depth of the movie as this movie was for kids but as I mentioned the theme of the movie was not really something you could allow kids to watch on their own although given a rating of PG I would say Parental Guidance is not just recommended but mandatory.
Your children have to deal with understanding grief and loss and this opens the family discussion about death and dying I would recommend speaking to your kids about these subjects so it removes the taboo around them.
Depression because of the loss of a family member is also something you see Nemo deal with and having to deal with that is no kid-friendly subject.
Although this movie is fun and an epic tale I would say due to the sombre feel to it watch it as a family and as parents answer any questions that arise from the kids.
My Rating