Where to find it: Netflix
Length: Four 50-minute episodes
Synopsis: A grimdark tragedy for children
Recommendation rating: 1/5
What I like about it: VFX, sometimes unintentionally funny
What I don’t like about it: deeply unpleasant
Review:
Who is this for? The target audience appears to be children, due to the animated elements and plot of a lost toy trying to reunite with his child, but it seems designed to end a childhood on sight. Ollie, voiced by Jonathan Groff with a bad Missourah accent, finds himself in a second-hand shop being roughly handled by the shopkeeper and longing for Billy, the boy who loved him. He meets other toys abandoned by their owners and they set out on an adventure, just like in Toy Story. Unlike Toy Story however, this story intersperses live-action footage of Billy’s mum dying of cancer and his alcoholic father trying to neglect him into growing up. Billy goes to hospitals, funerals and bars while Ollie and company hop freight trains and swap trauma stories, including the time one of the toys committed a violent murder. If this is children’s media then Richard Thompson’s The End of the Rainbow is a lullaby.
Maudlin, depressing and disgustingly unpleasant throughout, the tone may be consistent but it’s an ugly car crash that makes all other effort in this series pointless and the actors who choose to phone it in seem wise by comparison. ILM’s visual effects are the most impressive part; the animation is only passable but the lighting, blending with the live-action backgrounds, really is indistinguishable from magic.
Content notes (may contain spoilers): death, loss