Harold And the Purple Crayon (2024)
Who read Harold and the Purple Crayon as a kid? I did. I still like that story. Crockett Johnson’s lovely tale of imagination doesn’t hit a false note, ever. The new movie of the same name, however…
The trailer makes the movie’s plot pretty clear. Harold and his two friends enter the real world, where they find that life outside of their comfort zone isn’t easy, but they meet some cool people and some not-so-cool people. Naturally, something goes awry, and naturally Harold and Company have to get creative to make everything right.
In the meantime, though, Harold and Company get to wreck an Ollie’s store, which seems kind of like a Big Lots and a Goodwill had a head-on collision. They don’t mean to, of course. They’re just trying to help and unfortunately for them they’re the proverbial fish out of water.
On the plus side, they help Terry rediscover her concert pianist skills by conjuring up a grand piano in the town square. Terry draws a crowd and it’s all very nice. No one asks her if she knows any Rachmaninoff, though.
I’m sorry, but I’m so mixed about this thing. It’s got some cute parts, it’s funny sometimes, and it’s unfailingly innocent. I like Zachary Levi—he’s a natural goofball and he’s multitalented, so he’s a lot of fun in this role. Harold’s friends, Moose and Porcupine, are absolutely adorable, especially Porcupine, who isn’t in the movie nearly enough. There’s no tacked-on romance or tons of bodily function jokes, which I was extremely grateful for.
The movie is also pretty entertaining. I saw Harold with a theater full of kids and parents, and all the kids seemed to absolutely love it.
As for me, the slightly jaded English BA, I did a lot of understated groaning and facepalming, mainly because the movie commits one of the cardinal sins of storytelling: It tells the characters that they’re characters from a book.
Smashie smashie, goes immersion, leaving us with nothing but navel-gazing. And the one to do the smashing is Librarian Gary, who’s mad because he’s written a huge fantasy novel no one will publish. He likes giving readings of it at the library. The character names are unpronounceable and it’s uncomfortably homoerotic. Librarian Gary doesn’t care when everyone winces.
So yeah, he’s mad about it, and naturally he figures out where Harold and his friends are from pretty quickly. He also has very big eyes for that titular purple crayon.
Yep. The movie makes a librarian the villain. Groan. And (spoiler alert) the characters take a tour of Crockett Johnson’s house in Westport, Connecticut, so the immersion crumbles even more.
The movie also tries way, way too hard to make Harold overly innocent and childlike, as if it’s trying to be Elf or something. It’s not fair to the character, though, because the Harold of the books always has a connection to the real world, so he’s not supposed to be that clueless. If that’s the direction they were going to take Harold, why not keep him a kid?
It’s always fun when Hollywood stretches and distorts short stories until they’re almost unrecognizable, isn’t it? I wasn’t expecting a ton out of Harold and the Purple Crayon, which definitely could have been much, much worse, but I really wish it had been better than it was.
And what’s so sad is that it’s been adapted successfully for the screen before; namely the 2001 HBO series. I hate to say it, but the movie feels like a waste.
Harold and the Purple Crayon is currently in theaters. Rated PG.
My grade: C
Principal Cast: Zachary Levi, Lil Rel Howery, Benjamin Bottani, Zooey Deschanel, Tanya Reynolds, Jermaine Clement, Alfred Molina, Pete Gardner, Camille Guaty, Ravi Patel, Zele Avradopoulos, Boston Pierce, Salathiel Murphy, Vartan, Brisco De Poalo, Lauren Halperin, Seth Zane, Catherine Davis
Directed by Carlos Saldanha.
Written by David Guion, Michael Handelman, and Crockett Johnson (novel)