In an old Simpsons episode, Marge’s sisters are staring at the youngest girl and Bart is desperate to get their attention by making faces, until one of the sisters looks at him with disdain and says a phrase that is as true as it is painful: “When they grow up they lose their grace”Something like that happens with Harold, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Harold was a character from a children’s story, a little boy of two or three years old who made everything he drew with his purple crayon come true. This is how he imagined it. Crockett Johnsonwho between 1955 and 1963 published a series of books featuring this little creature curiously drawing the sky, the circus, the North Pole, his animal friends in his room, in short, all in the same colour, because the crayon was always the same, and all with just a few simple strokes that were part of his charm.
Faithful to that spirit, animated cartoons were made between 1959 and 1974, and in 2001 a television series of just 13 episodes, with the voice of Sharon Stone as a narrator. So far, no problems.
But some clever guy decided to change everything. In the film that has just been released worldwide, Harold has grown up, he is a big and naive boy who never left his room, where he lives with a moose and a porcupine, his friends.
To find an answer to certain concerns, one day he decides to paint a door and go out into the world. As soon as he leaves, the drawings are over, Harold and his friends become people like any other, but clearly inexperienced and immature and hasty. Now in his hands the crayon can be a danger, and even worse if it falls into the hands of an ambitious person.
That’s the story, which has no great grace or wit, but just a few special effects, a few turns around the creator of Haroldthe protagonist’s enthusiasm Zachary Levi (“Shazam!”) and the half-wasted presence of Zooey Deschanel like a young widowed mother who gives a little guidance to the older child.
Address, Carlos Saldanhawho on better occasions knew how to shine with “Ice Age,” “Rio,” and “Ferdinand the Bull”. With the current one, we just pass the time, we regret the absence of better scriptwriters, and we are grateful that no one here has thought of making a movie, or a comic, with Mafalda already grown up or something like that.
“Harold and the Purple Crayon” (USA, 2024); Dir.: Carlos Saldanha. Int.: Zachary Levi, Zooey Deschanel, Alfred Molina.
Source: Ambito
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
