Review: "The Willoughbys"

It's built into the DNA of the modern animated family film that there must be "life lessons" aimed at wee ones. "The Willoughbys" has that, too, though it's buried pretty deep in this tale, based on the book by Lois Lowry, about fractured families.

Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby are... really terrible parents. And not in a strictly ha-ha, they'll-come-around-in-the-end kinda way. They truly, deeply, madly do not like having children.

Living in virtual isolation inside an old mansion surrounded on all sides by skyscrapers, the Willoughbys (voices of Jane Krakowski and Martin Short) do have lots of love in their hearts -- but only for each other. Their ravishing romance holds no room for any ardor to escape when Tim, their firstborn, suddenly arrives. Same goes for daughter Jane and twin boys, who even have to share the same name, Barnaby (Sean Cullen).

(In the narrative safe space of movies aimed at kids, babies simply arrive unheralded, like the mail or the pest cat, voiced by Ricky Gervais, who also acts as the jaded narrator.)

The kids are basically left to their own devices, meals delivered infrequently as the parents remember to dispose of their leftovers, and any minor transgressions rewarded with confinement to the basement coal bin. This is mostly aimed at Tim (Will Forte), who as the oldest is put in charge of the litter by default.

Mostly the parents stay in their living room, cooing and kissing, and dreaming of a day when the children are gone. Unbeknownst to them, the kids are planning the same thing.

They hatch a plan to lure their parents into taking an extended trip around the world, ending with their demise in trying to climb "the tallest Alp." They're trying to manufacture their own orphanhood.

Alas, the parents did have the foresight to hire a nanny -- albeit the cheapest one possible -- and thus arrives Nanny (Maya Rudolph), a plus-sized bundle of energy. Jane (Alessia Cara), a budding songstress, immediately takes a shine to her, but the boys hatch plans to catapult her out the attic window into the city streets, and thus beyond their ken.

I really liked the look of this film, which is done in CG animation but made to seem like stop-motion, with little hiccups in the way people move. The Willoughbys all have vivid red yarn-like hair, including prodigious mustaches when they reach adulthood -- men and women.

The rest of the populace comes in all sorts of hues and shapes. Later on we meet Commander Melanoff (Terry Crews), the fictional mascot of a line of candy the kids are shocked to discover is an actual person, running a massive factory in solitude. He wears a military uniform made of gumdrops and other sugary confections, with a chest the size of a Buick and itty-bitty legs.

This is a fun, bright movie that adults will enjoy as much as children -- an increasingly rare thing you can say these days. Tim, Jane and the Barnabys share a strong bond even as they resign themselves to the fact their parents aren't going to suddenly turn into good people.

"Some people just weren't meant to have children" is not the sort of message you're used to hearing in a children's movie. It has the virtue of being true while also, in this take, quite funny.

What the Golden Globes mean for the Oscars

I don't watch the Golden Globes because the organization that hosts it is a complete joke and their picks are rarely adventurous and often ludicrous. However, it's become a staple of the movie awards season and all the big stars turn out for it.

It is, officially, an "event."

Receiving a GG is now considered second only to the Oscars in terms of a career boost, with probably a Screen Actors Guild award coming in third. So although the awards themselves are imho just this side of a joke, they undoubtedly have an influence on the Oscar race.

The Globes can solidify a film or performance that is already seen as a frontrunner. More notably, it can also shore up someone who's on the bubble and put them over the line of getting an Academy Award nomination.

Here's how I see the impact of this year's Globes:

• A lot of people were surprised by "1917" winning best drama and Sam Mendes taking director, but I said right after I saw it that it would be a leading Best Picture contender. It has all the ingredients of a classic Oscar pedigree: period picture, wonderful production values, antiwar, previous winners on the creative team or cast, etc.

• Renee Zellweger is now the frontrunner for Best Actress. It's a very competitive category with lots of terrific performances. But nostalgia for a Hollywood icon wins the day.

• Ditto for Brad Pitt for best supporting actor. I disagree strongly with this win because I don't see his performance as much of a stretch for him. He's just playing himself: coolest mother-effer in the room.

• I feel the same for Jennifer Lopez, who has been lobbying hard for awards. Laura Dern's wins looks like a career capper for her. A real pro who's been around a long time doing good work.

• Joaquin Phoenix seems to have a solid lead in the Best Actor race. I don't see Taron Egerton, who won the award in the comedy/musical category, as a serious threat. (I would've rather seen that award go to Eddie Murphy.) Adam Driver is the main competition, though I think Christian Bale is the best of the lot.

• Speaking of "Marriage Story," its failure to win a single award doesn't bode well. It even lost the original screenplay award to "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood," which must be cringe-worthy to every screenwriter who can actually string scenes together. Its win in the best musical or comedy (a real stretch of the definition) means "Hollywood" is also among the frontrunners now for best pic.

• REALLY surprised by the best animated film win for "Missing Link." I've been a big Laika fan but this was the weakest film they've produced. If this finally wins the Oscar for them after "Kubo and the Two Strings" failed to, it'll be like Martin Scorsese getting the Oscar for "The Color of Money."

• I liked "The Farewell" even though it's not terribly ambitious. Awkwafina winning best actress in the comedy/musical race probably ensures her a spot on the Oscar nominees list. My girl Emma Thompson, who I think gave the best performance in any category this year, male or female, will probably be shut out.

• There's been a lot of talk about "Parasite" becoming the first foreign language film to win the Best Picture Oscar, so I find it richly ironic that it couldn't even accomplish that in an awards given out by foreign journalists. (It wasn't even nominated, so maybe their rules are different.) Personally I think it's a fine film but nowhere near the best of the year, even among the foreign movies. Its win in the foreign language race would seem to seal its chances at the Oscars, though.

• "The Irishman" is not going to be the awards juggernaut people thought a few months ago. Ditto for "Marriage Story." Netflix had a really good year this year -- "Dolemite Is My Name" is also quite swell-- but as the industry disruptor they're experiencing pushback from traditional Hollywood powers. Giving "Irishman" a BS theatrical run -- handful of big cities for a month, medium cities for a week -- ruffled feathers. Also, more people are recognizing it as an overlong rehash of Marty's 50 years of gangster flicks.

• I did happen to flip on the TV just in time to see Tom Hank's speech, which was touching and nice. He's officially Hollywood's elder statesman now, protector of its mythology.

• I read negative stuff about Ricky Gervais' scorched-earth monologue. Personally I'm all in favor of forcing showbiz types to be confronted with a mirror of their own arrogance. Now do D.C. 

Cathing up with "The Invention of Lying"

The concept of "The Invention of Lying" is a great one for a dopey comedy, but star Ricky Gervais -- who also co-wrote and co-directed the film with Matthew Robinson -- is a little more ambitious.

In the movie's world, people always tell the truth. It's not that they choose to refrain from lying: They're actually physically incapable of it. Except for one guy, who stumbles across the power of saying "something that wasn't" -- that's the only way he can describe it, since there's no word for lying, and not even one for truth, since everyone assumes that everything everyone says is.

Not only that, but they actually volunteer the truth at every meeting. So for example, when chubby, homely Mark (Gervais) goes on a date with Anna (Jennifer Garner), it's immediately clear to all parties involved that she's way out of his league. The waiter at the restaurant they go to even says so. Anna also lets Mark know that she was masturbating right before he showed up at her door.

Now, you might think it strange that people who cannot lie would not at least refrain from always telling the truth -- even when it's unwelcome, unpleasant or hurtful to the person they're telling it to. But in the film's world, lies of omission are apparently just as damaging. So Mark's interactions are a ceaselessly funny string of scenes in which people put him down, call him and loser and insult him.

"Lying" has a host of cameos by big stars, such as Tina Fey as Mark's secretary, who greets him by telling him how overqualified she is for her job, and that she'll be spending her morning looking for another one on Craigslist. She's also told everyone who calls him not to leave a message, since he's about to get fired. About this, she is absolutely telling the truth.

Mark's occupation is a movie screenwriter. But in a world where no lies exist -- and therefore, no fiction -- films consist of narrative recitations of actual history. Since Mark was assigned the 14th century, which basically consisted of a lot of dreariness and Black Plague, his movies do poorly.

After his boss fires him, Mark is about to evicted from his apartment. He goes to the bank to pull his savings out to rent a truck for his stuff, but the computers are down so the teller just asks him how much money was in his account. Some weird synapse fires in his brain, and he tells her a larger number than he actually had. Unthinkingly, she gives him the money -- even when the computers snap back on -- because she assumes the system was in error.

Things go from there. When Mark is driving with his best friend, who is absolutely plastered, he's able to prevent a policeman from arresting them by simply stating that his friend is not drunk. The cop immediately apologizes and goes on his way.

Things get hairy when Mark tells his dying mother that she won't go into nothingness, but to a wonderful place where everyone she loves is there, and they all have mansions, and everything's great -- in other words, heaven. It cheers Mom up before she croaks, but the doctors and nurses listening hear about it, too, and demand to know more.

Before long, hordes of people have descended on Mark's house and want to know more about this wonderful afterlife. Pressed, he writes a series of 10 rules on pizza boxes, which include the knowledge that an old man living in the clouds controls everything, and decides who goes to the happy place and who doesn't.

Now you see why this movie didn't get much of a promotional campaign -- because this dopey little comedy is actually a sly satire about religion. The hook, of course, is that religion could not exist in a world where truth reigns; the first prophet is also the first liar.

Mark remains unhappy, though, because Anna refuses to get romantically involved with him because he's physically unattractive. He's made himself rich and famous using his gift of lying, but in a world where everyone tells the truth, she only wants to mate with someone as beautiful as her. She doesn't want "little fat kids with snub noses," is how she bluntly puts it.

At this point, the movie also offers clever insight into the world of reproduction. Ironically, people who cannot lie end up making poor decisions about their mates because they're incapable of looking at anything but the obvious exterior.

"The Invention of Lying" is a funny movie, but its true charms lie beneath the surface.

3 stars