Arco
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In 2075, a girl witnesses a mysterious boy in a rainbow suit fall from the sky. He comes from an idyllic future where time travel is possible. She shelters him and will do whatever it takes to help him return to his time.
STORY: C+
A simple tale set in a scary world.
Kids will easily lock into and love the movie’s main question: can Iris help Arco get back home? The story is tender and uncomplicated.
Much of the story’s real substance occurs in the background. Storms swirl with a nasty intensity. Fires ravage neighborhoods. Parents read bedtime stories via hologram because work constantly keeps them away.
The story lives on these two separate levels (plot and setting), and it’s not always easy to make connections between them.
PEOPLE: C
Arco, we hardly know ye.
The relationship between Arco and Iris reminds me of four year olds who meet at the sandbox and instantly declare themselves “best friends.” There’s no hesitation; Iris immediately jumps in to help this mysterious boy.
There’s not much depth to the main characters, but maybe that’s the point. Maybe if we looked at each other (and our future generations) the way kids do, the world would be a lot better off.
FILM NERD STUFF: B+
True colors shine through.
The animators make smart, satisfying choices with their use of color. Arco’s time is depicted in something close to grayscale. Joy, vivacity, and pizzazz seem in short supply. Loud, primary colors dominate Iris’s time.
That contrast does more than separate the timelines. It comments on the trade-off between being responsible and being unbothered.
ONE BIG LESSON: A-
Fix the problem, not the symptom.
The people of 2075 don’t seem interested in preventing fires. Instead, they use technology to encase each house and building in its own protective bubble.
They don’t seem interested in making it easier to raise a family. Instead, they use technology to fill the seats at the dinner table with holograms of parents while a robot tends to the kids’ needs.
We can’t make the mistake of using technology to fix every problem. Instead, we need to address the root cause or risk winding up somewhere we don’t recognize.
FINAL COMMENTS:
I’m writing this review two days after seeing Arco. I walked out of the theater thinking the film was just “okay.”
The Oscar-nominated film has been slow to leave my head, and the more I roll its themes around my brain, the more I find myself appreciating it.
This is a great film to see as a family. I’ll be seeing it again with my ten year old son, and I’m equally curious and excited about our post film debrief.