When a young girl’s sketchbook falls into a strange pond, her drawings come to life-chaotic, real and on the loose. As the towns descends into chaos, her family must reunite and stop the monsters they never meant to unleash.
Chusk says:
With its stable of inspirational biographies, religious animated features and overt sports-as-life metaphor movies, Angel Films has gained a foothold in the entertainment industry as the source of faith-based films. Overt in their marketing and intent, the studio has found great success in appealing to church groups to promote their wares, the films holding little in the way of surprises regarding their gentle approach and inspirational messaging.
So, imagine my surprise to find their latest release, Seth Worley’s “Sketch” is an unexpectedly dark film, with shades of Spielbergian suburban horror that is, at times, far too unnerving for the pre-teen audience it’s aimed at. Don’t get me wrong, this was a pleasant turn of events as I was anticipating a bland, obvious kids adventure cut from the same cloth as “The Goonies,” which it does borrow from at times. Yet, Worley has bigger narrative axes to grind, exploring childhood trauma and denial with an at times unflinching eye that is ultimately effective.
Amber Wyatt (Bianca Bell), like her brother, Jack (Kue Lawrence) and father, Taylor (Tony Hale), is reeling from the death of her mother. The trio go about through their days as if nothing is amiss, each suppressing the anger and fear they’re experiencing. However, the young girl is venting through her art, her school notebook filled with horrific monsters of her own design, inflicting violent acts on schoolmates she dislikes or strangers. Taylor is alerted to this by a school counselor whose strategies to address this prove less than effective.
Meanwhile, Jack has discovered that a lake not far from where they live has strange powers. Not only does it have restorative capabilities, healing wounds overnight, but it seems to be able to bring things to life. This is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt when Amber’s notebook is inadvertently dipped into it and the monsters it contains come to life.
What results is an, at times, genuinely tense adventure film that finds Amber, Jack and one of their friends Bowman (Kalon Cox) combating these creatures while the adults about them continue to disbelief them until it’s nearly too late. Worley makes a bold aesthetic choice in the way he renders the monsters, portraying them as crudely as they appear in the notebook, their crayon lines uneven, their bodies filled with gaps, their bodies at times well outside the lines.
This is a bold choice and what could have come off as unintentionally comical proves to be unsettling and, at times, terrifying. When they first appear, Worley wisely provides only glimpses of the creatures, all incredibly large or numerous, as befitting a child’s imagination. Yet, as they multiply, they become more vivid, each subsequent creature more powerful than the last, each representing Amber’s increasing sense of rage and pain.
Fortunately, Bell and Lawrence are up to the task of bringing sincerity to their portrayals of Amber and Jack. Genuine in their approach, they effectively convey their characters’ grief, grounding the film emotionally so that it succeeds. Unfortunately, their co-star, Cox is as obvious as they are subtle, regrettably drawing focus in every scene he’s in. Hale, of course, is solid and is supported ably by D’Arcy Carden as his frustrated sister-in-law.
It will be interesting to see how unsuspecting families react to all of this. The advertising materials give no indication that the film is as intense as it is or that grief is its thematic focus. I, for one, was pleasantly surprised these cards were held close to the vest, “Sketch” providing an unexpectedly meaningful and poignant experience. Here’s hoping it will be used as the tool it’s intended to be in providing an avenue for children to speak of those things that frighten them and help them come to terms with the world’s monsters, real and imagined.
3 Stars
