These days, it seems like most children’s films have to exist on two levels: The first level has to be simple, accessible, and rife with visual humor to appeal to little ones; the second level has to be a meta, hip, and pop culture savvy to appeal to their parents. Films like that can be ingenious and fun (see,
The film starts, as many fairy tales do, with a boy becoming an orphan. Little Pete (played by Levi Alexander as a three-year-old) is comfortably strapped into the backseat of his parent’s car, reading his favorite book, Where’s Elliot?, about a little lost dog, when there’s an accident (not too scary, mostly shown in the abstract). His parents both die, but Pete manages to wander into the woods, where he’s surrounded by a pack of snarling wolves. Things look dire—these wolves have never seen The Jungle Book, apparently—until he is saved by an enormous, friendly green dragon, who can also make himself invisible in a pinch. (Speaking of The Jungle Book, I’d say the CGI/puppetry here isn’t quite at that film’s remarkable level, but it’s still light years ahead of the 1977 original, which had our ragamuffin interacting with a cartoon dragon. Here, when Pete slides down the dragon’s massive wing or pets his giant snout, we believe it.)
Fast forward six years and Pete (now played by adorable and nimble Oakes Fegley) is living in a cave in the woods with the dragon, whom he has named Elliot, after the dog in the book. This is not a coincidence, by the way. This is one very dog-like dragon, who playfully bounds and cavorts with Pete like an overgrown beagle who happens—bonus!— to be able to fly. One favorite game has Pete jumping off a cliff, only to be swooped out of thin air by Elliot. Good times. (Elliot can’t talk, but he does make expressive, Wookiee-like sounds, and he and Pete are able to communicate.)
Everything changes when Pete is spotted in the woods by young Natalie (Oona Laurence) and her mother Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard), the forest ranger. The two take the dirty and loin-cloth clad boy home (they think he may’ve gotten separated from a camp site), only to discover that he’d been missing for six years. Pete patiently explains that he’s been looked after by his friend Elliot. “Is he your imaginary friend?” Natalie asks. “What’s imaginary?” Pete replies.
One of my favorite things about Pete’s Dragon is that all the humans are decent people. Grace is a warm and loving maternal figure with an abiding love for all things natural, and Natalie is a resourceful and loyal friend. Grace’s father (Robert Redford), who for years has been spinning his own elaborate tales of a youthful encounter with a dragon, becomes an important ally. Even the film’s “bad guy” (Karl Urban), who’s part of a crew excavating the forest, isn’t that bad. Yes, he’s just wants to capture Elliot but it’s mostly so he can earn the respect of his foreman brother, Grace’s husband, Jack (Wes Bentley).
Oh, and one more thing about Pete’s Dragon: You will cry. A lot. I do think there’s something about the notion of the dragon as a big, green, fire-breathing dog that makes the relationship between Pete and Elliot so affecting. Who can’t relate to the love between a boy and his dog?
When they are separated, or when Elliot’s life is in danger, it packs an emotional wallop.
Indeed, sitting right in front of me at my screening was a little boy and his grandparents. At one intense point in the film, the grandmother began to sob, rather loudly. The boy looked at her, slightly nonplussed, then grabbed her hand to console her.