Wonky performances and tryhard comedy hinder much of Harold and the Purple Crayon’s thematic and entertainment ambitions. Levi has had some charismatic roles in ‘Shazam’ and ‘Tangled’, but his signature eccentricity now feels stale. He seems to be playing a variation of Shazam – also essentially a kid in a man’s body – rather than a character unique to this film. Harold and the Purple Crayon is now playing in cinemas nationwide.
Harold and the Purple Crayon is adapted from a series of ten children’s books, published from 1955 to 2020. Their colourful blending of reality and imagination has made them quite popular reads, at least among American audiences. Therefore, it is surprising that a feature film adaptation has taken so long to emerge. However, based on the film’s run-of-the-mill quality, perhaps it would’ve been better if those book pages had never come to life.
Beginning as an animated feature, we meet a young boy named Harold. His magic purple crayon lets him bring anything he draws to life. This inspires him to transform his initially blank world into one brimming with wonderful images and places. Aided by a voiceover narrator (Alfred Molina), who Harold refers to as his father, Harold goes from boy to man (Zachary Levi), drawing his world into something a little bit bigger each day.
When the narrator suddenly stops communicating with him, Harold decides to find him. He steps into the real world using his magic crayon, and he and his creations go from an animated medium to a live-action one. Along the way, he meets single mother Terri (Zooey Deschanel) and her son Mel (Benjamin Bottani), who wants to help Harold and a greedy amateur author (Jemaine Clement) who covets Harold’s powers.
Anyone who’s watched Enchanted, The Rocky and Bullwinkle Movie, or even some of the SpongeBob films will recognise this gimmick – animated characters stepping into a live-action world. Harold’s friends, Moose and Porcupine, are even transformed from animals into humans upon entering the real world (played by Lil Rey Howrey and Tanya Reynolds, respectively); an odd choice, but one that at least takes advantage of the actors’ physical abilities. It’s a familiar premise, and the sugary-sweet themes of embracing imagination and finding the magic in the everyday are just as recognisable. If this had been made in the 90s, Levi’s character would almost certainly have been played by Robin Williams, akin to his roles in Jack or Flubber. The film probably would’ve been a lot more fun, too.
Wonky performances and tryhard comedy hinder much of the film’s thematic and entertainment ambitions. Levi has had some charismatic roles in Shazam and Tangled, but his signature eccentricity now feels stale. He seems to be playing a variation of Shazam – also essentially a kid in a man’s body – rather than a character unique to this film. Deschanel, an underrated actor with a string of great credits to her name, seems to wear one expression of glumness throughout the picture.
Howrey plays the screeching best friend, a trope I thought we’d long since moved past, while calling Clements’ efforts grating would be a courtesy. His character is supposed to be the slimy, creepy antagonist whose grandiose delusions are more pathetic than evil, but because his otherwise relatable aspirations of being appreciated aren’t given much dignity outside of the odd line of dialogue, his role is entirely caricaturistic. Only Bottani and Reynolds come away relatively unscathed, with Reynolds actually delivering some decent moments of laughter, notably through her portrayal of a porcupine struggling to adjust to a human body.
Much of the comedy revolves around Harold’s naivety about the real world and how that naivety inconveniences those around him, as seen in a bizarre sequence where he and Moose nearly destroy a supermarket. On paper, this sounds reasonably funny, and it does get the odd chuckle, but because the performances seem to be mugging to the camera during the jokes, it gets tiresome far too quickly. It’s a film that relies on jocular exaggeration or predictable punchlines instead of humour derived from the conflicts or themes, which is especially unfortunate due to the goodwill at its thematic core.
Celebrating imagination and encouraging creativity are inherently good things. Its commentary on how stories can have power and identities beyond their inception and desired effects is also really touching. But even the most imaginative people usually know when to rein themselves in, and this film embellishes so much in its hyper-enthusiasm that it loses its charm.
CGI is perpetually employed to achieve the wonder of imagination, whether it’s Harold replacing a tyre or creating a plane out of thin air. The slight fakery of it could perhaps be explained as a creative choice to show how not-of-this-world Harold’s gifts are. Yet the disconnect between the physical actions of the actors and the computer-generated action of the visuals proves distracting. This includes a scene where Harold draws ice cream for himself and his friends, but the imagery is so clearly artificial that the immersion of the whole film is lost. Some scholars use the term media heterotopia to discuss the seamless blending of live-action and special effects and what positive or negative impact they have on the film and its workers. This film is under no threat of being scrutinised via this umbrella term.
However, even with these faults, when you strip the film down, it’s pretty harmless. Its themes are benign, and its tone is fairly light-hearted despite how rambunctious it can be. As a nearly 28-year-old man at the time of writing this, I’m clearly not in the target audience for the picture. The younger audiences it’s aimed at will probably enjoy some of the humour and spectacle, and even the odd parent dragged to screens may appreciate its themes. But, even acknowledging how many grains of salt my words require, it’s hard to imagine the majority of kids picking this over even the most middling of Pixar or DreamWorks films. Harold and the Purple Crayon has its moments, but it’s a tried and tested film that feels decades too late.
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