How is everyone doing right now? No matter what your situation, we all have to mostly find our entertainment from inside our own home at the moment. While that has proven difficult for some of the more energetic adults out there, I can’t imagine how hard it must be to be a parent with young kids right now. Truly, I admire you all for possessing a strength and patience I’m not sure I have, as I don’t have children yet. And while you are looking for something new to entertain your younglings, Good Guy Netflix has given us The Willoughbys, which may not only entertain your kids and you, but also illustrate to them just how lucky they are to have such awesome parents as yourselves.

Tim, Jane, and twins Barnaby and Barnaby (yeah they are both named Barnaby) are children of the Willoughby family. Unfortunately they are not very well cared for by their parents, who only love each other and can’t stand children or their “childish needs.”  After being cruelly thrown out of their house for taking in an orphaned baby, the Willoughby children hatch a plan to send their parents on a dangerous vacation so they could become orphans themselves. Unfortunately the process of being parentless in a modern society presents it’s own set of problems. As you can see by the synopsis, this is no ordinary children’s film, (as warned by the cat narrator played by Ricky Gervais warns you at the beginning.)

How can I describe this film without spoiling the entire thing? Its like if Wes Anderson read every Roald Dahl book ever written, then wrote a script paying homage to them while on a coke bender. Then he decided not to direct it at all and gave it to someone who is the opposite of his directing style (you know, with actual conveyed emotion and some camera movement.) Like most children’s films, its visually bright, colorful, with quirky character designs. The Willoughbys takes it a step further than most of them. While I admit I find very bright animated films and unusual character designs a bit off-putting in some cases, I believe it was absolutely necessary in this one as this film is so whimsical that it borders on absurdist at times. Even though its done by Bron Studios, it was so remnicient of Chicken Run’s animation style that I had to make sure it wasn’t done by Aardman Studios. I can’t quite tell if it’s all CGI or has some stop motion, but the animation definitely had a stop motion feel to it.

For a smaller animation studio, they certainly got an impressive cast. Along with Gervais, they got Maya Rudolph, Terry Crews, Will Forte, and Martin Short. Some may complain about using an all adult cast to voice the children characters, but again, given the quirky nature of the film it seemed fitting. I especially loved Sean Cullen as the voice of the young Barnaby twins, making them sound even more creepy than they are written. The cast did a good job of sounding both dry enough to convey the type of humor they were going for and animated enough to hopefully keep little kids attention.

I realize I’m an animation nerd who never fully grew up, and I may lack some of the more…mature sensibilities that many adults may have. I’m certain I have a slightly higher tolerance for some of the zany and slapstick antics that kids movies may have. The Willoughbys definitely did have some of those moments that could be ever so slightly grating on parents, but hopefully not so many that most adults couldn’t enjoy this just as much as their kids (and me!) Of course, I have no garuntees how much you will like it if your kids are the type that will watch it on repeat for two months straight. Either way, I wish everyone the best of health, and may our streaming media continue to preserve our sanity!