'Onward' Review: Pixar returns with another magical adventure sailing on the bond of brotherly love
Be it 'Inside Out' or 'Coco', Pixar has a track record of tugging at the heartstrings with its emotional storylines and vivid imagination. Keeping to this bittersweet tradition, the film studio's latest offering 'Onward' checks all the boxes for a feel-good family film, in the guise of a fantastical and magical adventure. At its heart, it's about brotherly love, loss, and grief.
The story is primarily about two brothers Ian (Tom Holland) and Barley (a wonderful Chris Patt), and their determination to bring back their dead father, just for a few hours. On his sixteenth birthday, Ian is given a magical staff, which has been left behind for him by his father along with a 'visitation' spell. With this spell, the boys can bring back his father for 24 hours. However, things go disastrously wrong and they're left with just a pair of legs. Hence, the two decide to go on a crazy journey to see their father again, even if it is just for a few seconds.
Ian is a shy and nervous teenager, and his brother Barley is outgoing and loud, and a 'screw-up' as the policemen like to call him. Yet, he isn't just a typical layabout, he is a loving and caring brother. Barley's relationship with Ian forms the heartbeat of the film, as he showers love on his introvert of a brother and always pushes him to do his best. It takes a while for Ian to realise it, but he gets there eventually. This tale of brotherly bonding is placed in a fantastical setting, where one of the underlying themes suggests magic exists for those who wish to seek it.
While the film seems straightforward and simple at first, it isn't so. Apart from the themes of familial love and warmth, there lies a longing wistfulness for the old days--- where magic existed and everything wasn't explained and made so simple by science and technology. Those were easier and happier days. The film begins with this voiceover and the scenes transition to how technology has taken hold of society.
Even the magical unicorns don't believe in their power anymore and prefer lounging about, along with eating trash. Enchantment is fading away. However, there are a precious few like Barley who wish to cling to the past, even though it results in no one taking him seriously. His mother Laurel (Julia Louis Dreyfuss) tells him to think about his future and stop holding on to the past. Yet, that's what makes Barley a special character--- he's just a boy who wants to believe in the good old days of adventure and fantasy.
'Onward' is a wholesome, emotional and highly enjoyable film and deserves a watch more than once.
