Come Away Parent Guide

Wonder. Enchantment. Magic. These are the defining features of fairy tales, and all are embodied in the classic children’s books, Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland. You would assume that a movie mash up of these stories would embody these traits…but you’d be mistaken.

In combining these beloved tales, Come Away promises enchantment but fails to deliver. What it generates is emotion - lots and lots of emotion. Most of the film is drenched in grief and guilt, with a thin serving of bittersweet happiness at the end. It’s so melancholy, in fact, that you will want to consider your children’s tolerance for sad stories before watching the movie. If you have sensitive kids, they could easily spend much of the film crying, with bad dreams as an unwanted chaser.

Mournful atmosphere aside, the script for Come Away is quite clever, at least for fans of the source material. The story is set in Victorian England, where eight year old Alice Littleton (Keira Chansa) and her older brothers, David and Peter (Reece Yates and Jordan A Nash), are enjoying an idyllic childhood. They live in a charmingly shabby home in the English countryside and the siblings run wild in the woods, imagining battles with pirates and other foes. At home, their loving parents (David Oyelowo and Angelina Jolie) create a whimsical, joyful environment where the children flourish. But then tragedy strikes …

This is the point where the film turns dark as grief consumes the family. Rose Littleton seeks comfort in alcohol and husband Jack returns to gambling, an addiction he had previously overcome. As the children watch their parents unravel, they will also confront extended family members, whose behavior ranges from officious to evil. Fault lines the children never imagined will spread throughout the family, threatening to tear it apart.

In addition to its unexpectedly gloomy ambiance, I was surprised by the amount of negative content in a movie aimed at a family audience. There is a fair bit of relatively harmless imaginary violence, but there is also a chilling scene where a man comes home with a bloody bandage on his hand and informs his wife that the hand has been crushed in a beating. (He eventually loses the hand.) A character’s death is also portrayed on screen: it’s not graphic but it could still be disturbing to some young viewers. Also inappropriate for a children’s film is a scene where a child chugs alcohol, hoping it will take her away from her home and make her disappear. This isn’t the kind of behavior we want kids to see and emulate.

As I watched this film, I kept wondering who its intended audience is supposed to be. There’s too much violence and grief for little kids. Older kids and teens are likely to consider the movie “babyish”, thanks to its association with children’s books. Perhaps adult fans will appreciate the literary allusions to their beloved novels?

Sadly, though, the biggest problem facing this film is that the pixie dust was left out. Despite its stellar cast and beautiful visual design, the movie lacks magic. And without it, the story simply doesn’t fly.