Well, I have a 4 year old going on 5, and I've already seen this film a dozen times. Okay, maybe 10 times. So I'm an expert of some sort.
And it's got so many great aspects-for kids at least-I have to only admire the construction, the acting (via voice and animation), and the music (which is not incidental).
I do like jazz, which helps, because I bemoan its continuing marginalization. The film makes it seem relevant on some basic level, a way to talk with layers and beauty. Yeah, the movie actually has qualities of adult loss that add to the very childlike wonder and the basic twisting plot.
I don't talk plot, so can only say that there is a key twist (on the hospital bed) that took me by surprise the first time and still thrills me on later watching. It's key to the willingly inventive qualities thoughout. For my taste, the recreation of heaven and souls and the apparent rules that govern that world are fun but just a shell for the rest of the movie (just as they are inside the head of the girl in "Inside Out."
But I have to return to the music, and to the dramatic stylizing of Jon Batiste, who is funny and talented in real life, too. The two or three times the movie turns its attention to complete absorbtion in the music I am swept away. I just hope other people are, too, since jazz is one of the great Black developments in world music, and world art.
And it's got so many great aspects-for kids at least-I have to only admire the construction, the acting (via voice and animation), and the music (which is not incidental).
I do like jazz, which helps, because I bemoan its continuing marginalization. The film makes it seem relevant on some basic level, a way to talk with layers and beauty. Yeah, the movie actually has qualities of adult loss that add to the very childlike wonder and the basic twisting plot.
I don't talk plot, so can only say that there is a key twist (on the hospital bed) that took me by surprise the first time and still thrills me on later watching. It's key to the willingly inventive qualities thoughout. For my taste, the recreation of heaven and souls and the apparent rules that govern that world are fun but just a shell for the rest of the movie (just as they are inside the head of the girl in "Inside Out."
But I have to return to the music, and to the dramatic stylizing of Jon Batiste, who is funny and talented in real life, too. The two or three times the movie turns its attention to complete absorbtion in the music I am swept away. I just hope other people are, too, since jazz is one of the great Black developments in world music, and world art.