by Cain Noble-Davies
Worth: $9.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Evanna Lynch, Ardal O’Hanlon, Miranda Otto, Richard Roxburgh
Intro:
... there’s certainly entertainment value here. Just not for the intended reasons.
At time of writing, it is unclear which specific publicity image will be used at the top of this write-up, but chances are, it will illustrate the accuracy of the following statement better than the word themselves: This animated film… is not particularly well-animated.
Despite being an Irish co-production, we unfortunately aren’t dealing with the indie wonders at Cartoon Saloon. Instead, it’s studio Telegael, who previously collaborated with Flying Bark on Blinky Bill: The Movie and Splash Entertainment on the infamous Norm of the North, working alongside Aussie studio Pop Family Entertainment.
While the visuals aren’t quite as dire as those from Norm of the North, everything from the character designs to the settings have a perpetually plastic sheen to them that makes the production look much cheaper than it likely is. Add to that the erratic moments of motion blur, bursts of stuttering framerate, and graphical glitches reminiscent of the cinematics in Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, and there’s certainly entertainment value here. Just not for the intended reasons.
The story, aside from its shades of early Harry Potter-era magical chosen one narrative (right down to casting Harry Potter alumnus Evanna ‘Luna Lovegood’ Lynch in the lead role), is like an Irish slant on Encanto. It features Betty Flood (Lynch) living in an Irish town with her titular Freaky Family, all of whom are active with magic… except for her. The reasons for why seem to differ from scene-to-scene; a result of her half-magi heritage, being born naturally as opposed to through a spell, monomyth monotony. But regardless, she is the odd one out, and under strict rules from her parents (Miranda Otto and Ardal O’Hanlon) not to get involved in magic. Total shocker: She starts to get involved with magic.
The worldbuilding shows Irish cultural influences, with the Floods fleeing their homeland as a result of a war between the magical Magi and the musical Clefs, and there’s occasional moments of genuine and captivating weirdness. Well, only one or two, involving a public transport worm and a magic tournament that Betty’s older brothers (Ed Byrne as the necromantic Winchflat, and Neil Delamere as the canine Staniel) compete in. But the script (co-written by Harry ‘Back to the Outback’ Cripps) never ends up having much of a focus on anything, jolting sporadically from moment to moment in a blind grab for stimuli that its younger audience can latch onto.
It doesn’t help that, again much like Encanto, there’s a lot of dramatic emphasis on the soundtrack (like, the finale involves literally singing the big bad guy to death), and yet the music here might be the film’s weakest aspect. Diagetic music that never fits the instruments that are actually on-screen, bland poppy post-production that adds its own plasticity to the proceedings, and lyrics that might as well be improvised for how resonate they are or how well they’re performed in the moment.
The bad guys are already not all that threatening, between one of Richard Roxburgh’s weaker villain turns as King Murkhart, and Rupert Degas’ weirdly Trumpian breathiness as the spidery vizier Volos, but made more so when this is the supposed embodiment of goodness in the world.
My Freaky Family is so disposably non-threatening, it might as well be an nWave Studios production. There are hints of potential in this film’s world with its reckless oddity and admittedly interesting allegory for the Troubles, but the fundamental elements like visuals and audio are only passable at best, if not outright subpar.
My Freaky Family is destined to be streaming fodder that is inexplicably being shown in cinemas, in the same year when even the mid-ness of 100% Wolf was substantially elevated into proper cinematic material with its sequel; this is a spell that is all-too-easily countered.
