"Arco" - This Year's Perfectly Serviceable Animated Darling

My first press screening at my first Chicago International Film Festival was the Cannes-premiered, French animated film, Arco. The film follows a young boy, Arco, who lives in the year 2932, and accidentally travels “back in time” to 2075 via a magic rainbow cape, and forms a friendship with a girl his age, Iris, as they bond over similar familial disputes, albeit with some lost in time period translations. Actress Natalie Portman serves as a member of the primary dubbed voice cast, as well as a producer for the film which is likely going to be an underdog darling come this awards season. I thought it was perfectly fine, and I am well aware of the fact that these kinds of films have simply never been ones that I find myself consistently connecting to. 

The film does a lot of things beautifully, don’t get me wrong there. You can tell immediately from looking at any single promotional still that it is stunning to look at. The use of the magic rainbow cape produces some unforgettable, ethereal imagery, and paired with a lot of the production design in the 2932 setting in particular, makes the film a delicious feast for the eyes. 

The score is tremendous and elevates several scenes into potential TikTok edit stardom, especially given some of the flying sequences that have more than a little bit of How to Train Your Dragon in them. It utilizes a more classic technique of having at least some form of the score be present in nearly every scene. It’s not always the focal point, but it’s always doing something to elevate the current moment. 

What surprised me the most about the film was its perspectives on both A.I., and our growing sense of isolationism amidst its developments. What was most compelling about this to me, is that the 2075 timeline in the film is the one that is clearly more overly reliant on it, than the 2932 timeline, however despite 2932 not utilizing it as crucially, the lack of community, or even evidence of other human beings outside of the central family existing was a paradigm shift I found to be extremely compelling. Obviously we’ll all be long gone before we have the opportunity to put the validity of this vision to the test, but as an experiment, it was absolutely my favorite part of the film. 

In regards to the script: this is where I started to have my share of issues. This is a film that really, really, really wants to make you cry. And on paper it has all of the ingredients to do so: it’s part coming of age, part familial drama, part robot-human friendship movie; it’s got it all! But it’s a bit too aware of that, and thinks that that’s all it needs to do. The film, including credits, is 88 minutes long, which is not an inherent issue. There are films far shorter than this that do more in 75 minutes than some films can do in 150. Unfortunately, with Arco, I found the pacing to be its biggest downfall, and made it feel significantly longer than it is. 

There comes a point about halfway through the film where it seems as if pretty much all of the established central conflict is solved, but the filmmakers didn’t intend to make a short, and needed to find a way to make it feature length. There is a pretty massive story switch to an additional conflict that had been mildly thematically discussed, but never literally hinted at, and it feels as if the film becomes a spin-off of itself. 

As far as the ending goes, there is another choice made in the final minutes that felt to me as if it came out of left field, and once again exists specifically for the purpose of making you cry as you leave. It has its fair share of over-written and performed dialogue that felt well… performative. It simply didn’t feel natural at all to me, and if I’m being completely honest, left a sour taste in my mouth. 

In all fairness to the film, I can name quite a few people in my life who I know would absolutely eat this up, and the general consensus is far more positively skewed than how I’m coming across here. And overall I still like quite a lot about it. It’s just abundantly clear that these kinds of films are not ones I connect with. So go watch it in theaters on November 14th and form your own take. I’m sure we’ll be seeing much more of this film come awards season.