MOVIE REVIEW: WHAT "ONWARD" SAYS AND (MAGICALLY) DOESN'T SAY

Disney/Pixar’s Onward has a title that doesn’t do it justice (it refers to a shift setting on the brothers’ van) and trailers cannot. No throwaway commercial can capture the journey unless you take it with these engaging characters. A fantasy-comedy-adventure-buddy romp. Onward is on the same level as Finding Nemo and the original Toy Story films (when Woody had an owner who wanted him and Buzz wasn’t a one-dimensional minor character), Onward has the qualities Pixar learned from early Disney storytelling that they adapted into modern animation. I did not go in expecting all of that, but was pleasantly surprised. I was also moved to tears.

I did not lose my father at a young age like the two protagonists (and director Dan Scanlon), but he is gone now (and lives on in my heart (so Coco is a personal Pixar favorite). We were close. He taught me a love of music and records. These were my dad’s gifts to me, the equivalent of magic and wizardry in this film. So I was certainly moved. But even thus primed for being verklempt, it was clear that the entire Onward team at motivated to make this film keep its focus to the director’s vision. There was not the more common effect lately one senses from family films, that the team was tasked with fulfilling a series of initiatives, to be checked off a series of lists, much as Ian (voice of Tom Holland) does throughout the film.

There was no smirking arrogance in any of these characters, no hands-on-hips with that trite “look at how confident I am” stance, no cross-armed assumption of audience charisma (though I have not seen all the promo art or merchandise of course). What was evident was humility. It’s getting hard to route for the animated equivalent of “the head cheerleader” and “the top quarterback” with everything going for them, or conversely see another under-the-top loser improbably become an over-the-top winner amid cheering onlookers, both formulas symptomatic of recent animated (and some live-action) features. Every character in this movie is believable. They all work for their respective fates.

Pete Doctor reportedly encouraged his people to look into their hearts and pasts for their stories. It worked for Charles M. Schulz. Hey, even Walt Disney’s past was fodder for aspects of his films. Carl Reiner called these aspects “realies,” the real-life stories and situations that ring true.

Onward was also surprising because it was not weighed down by leaden pop social messages of late. No metaphoric granite fingers pointed at the theater audience, making sure they were clear on what was being ever-so-clearly stated anyway, even if we got it already. (We get it! We agree! Dim the headlights!) The theme of Onward was love and acceptance. It was inherent in the strong writing—a more effective and powerful form of messaging, much the way Zootopia let the story lightly lift it up rather than iron message anvils drop it down. As in Aesop’s “The Wind and the the Sun,” you beam rather than blow. Heavyhandedness repels rather than inspires.

And Onward does inspire. And it reassures us that Pete Docter’s Pixar is off to a great, smart start. There is a lot of talk in this movie about the importance of not letting shiny new techie objects of convenience completely replace and destroy the essential—and relevant—magic which ultimately triumphs.

This may be the most obvious metaphor in the whole film. After all, recent research has just proven that Disney+ subscribers have overwhelmingly chosen to watch classic Disney over all the newest programming and franchises. The good “magic” lasts and remains relevant for generations. Somehow it shines through. This is one film that will be watched for a very long time as well. (I can’t speak yet for the sequels, though I’d love to see these characters just a little more—but then please stop!)