They say that being a parent is the toughest job you’ll ever love.
But let’s be honest: If it’s a job, a few parents could stand a good talk with HR. Take Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby, a husband and wife so in love with each other that they completely ignore their kids.
“I am your father,” Mr. Willoughby tells his newly born eldest, Tim. “And that sweet woman, whom you insulted with your rude birth, is Mother. … If you need love, I beg that you find it elsewhere.”
That’s pretty much how Tim and the rest of the Willoughby children (sister Jane and twin brothers, both named Barnaby) spent their first years of childhood. They were allowed to eat “yesterday’s food,” if there was any food left over from yesterday. The Barnabys share a single sweater between them. The children were not allowed to sing or play or do anything that might disturb Mother’s knitting. And if someone did fall out of line (Timothy was usually the family’s scapegoat), they’d spend the night in the coal bin.
Tim often wonders how such a proud family (distinguished by their outsized success, fierce love and impressive facial hair) could’ve sunk so low.
The ancient Willoughby home does undergo a momentary blip in excitement when an orphan is left on the front doorstep. Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby won’t tolerate another child in the house, so they demand their own progeny get rid of it—and they’ll not be allowed back home until they do. “How are we to restore honor to House Willoughby if we are not living in the Willoughby house?” Tim laments.
So, not knowing much about the needs of a baby, they leave it at another doorstop: that of the famed Melanoff candy factory. What could be a better place for a baby than that? Why, the Willoughby children think a happy, colorful candy factory a grand improvement over their own living situation. But before they leave her, they name her Ruth (making them all the Ruth-less Willoughbys) and march back home, longing to be orphans themselves.
But why couldn’t they be orphans? Tim and Jane begin to ponder. What if …
A plan quickly forms. Tim creates a brochure for what he calls the Deplorable Travel Agency, advertising a romantic getaway to the world’s most dangerous locales: volcanoes, rivers of acid, bear-filled forests. And Tim knows the ultimate kicker: “NO CHILDREN ALLOWED,” he scrawls across the brochure.
And sure enough, the Willoughby parents (who must be several threads short of a sweater) jump at the opportunity for a world-spanning getaway from their bothersome brats. But what to do with them while they’re away? Aren’t good nannies expensive? frets Mother.
Yes, agrees Father. “We’ll hire a not-good nanny! For cheap!”
When the nanny (Linda) arrives, she proves to be not so bad after all. Indeed, she’s pretty good. She feeds the kids oatmeal, she sings with Jane, and she even slowly gains the trust of suspicious Tim. She may work for Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby, she admits, but “my duty is to look after you guys.” And then she adds, “I couldn’t bear to break your weird little hearts.”
In time, the Willoughby kids begin to understand what a real family should be characterized by: love. That doesn’t mean that parents or guardians can or even should be perfect, but rather that they look out for their kids—and the kids look out for each other, too.
The film shows the beauty of adoption and also stresses, in its odd little way, some very practical tips on what a good family should do. Tim pines for his old Willoughby ancestors, who always sat at the table together. Through Linda’s cooking and Ruth’s sugar highs, we learn that oats are preferable to candy. (Also, don’t eat lobsters that have been hanging off the wall of the dining room.) The film takes a dim view of being too absorbed by the internet. (Rather ironic, considering it’s a product of internet sponge Netflix.) And as the story moves on, we see some touching acts of love and sacrifice made for others.
While Father and Mother Willoughby have some very serious child-rearing issues, you can’t fault them for their unceasing (if somewhat annoying) love for each other.
We see a picture of a nun on the side of a bus advertisement. A foster family seems to be a bit hippie-ish. Someone dresses up as a frightening spiritual/monstrous guardian of the Willoughby house.
Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby are constantly kissing, and as a sign of affection, Mr. Willoughby sometimes makes a sound that’s something like a turkey gobble. In one or two instances, their patter can sound a bit sultry.
But that said, they seem to have no idea where babies come from. When Tim arrives (we hear a squelch and a plop from behind a closed door) Mrs. Willoughby is shocked. And when Ruth introduces herself to the family, Mrs. Willoughby wonders aloud how all these children keep appearing.
In a montage we’re given of positive foster-family examples, we see a family headed by two fathers. We’re told that all Willoughbys grow impressive facial hair, including the women. (We see evidence of that a couple of times.) Several references to Mrs. Willoughby’s balls of yarn seem intended to invoke a crass slang term for the male anatomy. Romance may be brewing between the nanny Linda and Commander Melanoff, head of the Melanoff candy company. Tim, like all babies, enters this world naked, and we see a bit of his bare bum.
If I didn’t make this clear from the outset, the Willoughby children are trying to get rid of their biological parents … permanently (if indirectly). In a visualization of their plot, we see their terrified mother and father dealing with volcanoes and bears and acid-filled bodies of water, among many other terrible, destructive things. On their trip, though, the elder Willoughbys prove to be remarkably fortunate. Their guides—all of whom look exactly alike—succumb to each and every peril instead.
The movie is filled with slapstick humor: People get thrown out of open windows (or, sometimes, catapulted into closed ones). They suffer electric shocks and fall from some pretty big heights. Folks are punched by boxing gloves, fall through trap doors and get beaten with pillows. Lots and lots and lots of cars comically crash into each other. An avalanche takes out a mountain train. A gigantic stuffed bear (as in taxidermied, not teddy) falls on someone. Someone appears to receive a groin injury by sliding down a bannister. Several people nearly freeze to death.
Jane describes a book she read that featured a “lot of blood” and “half-eaten kids.” Tim at first worries that Jane means to get rid of Mother and Father violently. After their parents go on vacation, the Willoughby kids spend time destroying some of the home’s knickknacks. A toothy shark appears to do what sharks are especially famous for (though the movie cuts the shark attack short of any actual biting or chewing). We hear a banjo meant to remind older viewers of the violent movie Deliverance. A chubby duck serves as a makeshift dirigible anchor.
None, unless you count “darn” and a few exclamations of “what in the Willoughby?”
Mother and Father Willoughby seem to share a bottle of wine that Jane sneaks in and steals. (She’s not eaten for a while, and she’s probably trying to get whatever sustenance she can.)
The film sports a surprising amount of bathroom humor. After Tim is almost hit by a bus, we see a puddle accumulate around his feet. Commander Melanoff marvels at Ruth and her ability to “poop” so much. Ruth gobbles up candy like crazy, and then she seems to vomit rainbows. (She upchucks at one or two other junctures, too.) Linda tells the kids in her charge to urinate before starting a big trip. Someone accuses Linda of wearing “toilet paper again.”
The Willoughby children steal Linda’s purse, a car, and a dirigible built from candy in order to rescue someone. Linda breaks Tim out of orphan prison (motto: “We correct where you went wrong.”) Tim betrays his well-meaning nanny. The Willoughby children don’t always get along that well.
Obviously, the Willoughby parents are terrible, terrible examples of what parents should be, and government social service workers are not shown in the best of lights, either. (Separating the kids from each other, the chief orphan officer intones robotically, “You’ll adopt standard childhood experiences. Homes will be allocated, schools will be assigned.”) Those scenes could be upsetting for any foster children who’ve had bad experiences.
The Willoughbys is based on a book of the same name by Lois Lowry, the two-time Newbery Award-winning author whose most famous book was the much more serious The Giver—a book sometimes called out for its deep Christian themes.
You won’t find explicit references to faith here. But even in this lightweight, cartoonishly grim rollick, we still see some strong family-centric elements. Through this terrible family, we see what a good family looks like—and why, in fact, it’s so important.
This sweet, funny and surprisingly affecting animated film does have its issues that parents should be aware of—bathroom humor and (as has become fairly expected lately) a quick reference to a same-sex couple chief among them. And the movie, stressing what terrible parents Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby are, certainly seems to suggest that the commandment of “Honor thy mother and father” comes with a caveat not present in the Bible.
Those issues are somewhat counterbalanced by an obvious truth that the movie also stresses: These Willoughby kids need parents. Parents who will teach them to eat right and encourage them to gather ’round the dinner table. Like many a child in America, the Willoughby’s real parents aren’t necessarily the ones they were born to. Their real parents are the ones that love them.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
