There’s an appealingly fecund quality to the hand-drawn animations produced by the Irish studio Cartoon Saloon (Wolfwalkers, Song of the Sea) – stories that unfold in verdant worlds that always seem about to burst into bud or leaf. The company’s latest production, My Father’s Dragon (directed by Nora Twomey, whose previous film was the Oscar-nominated The Breadwinner), is no exception. While it lacks the lilting top note of Celtic folklore of other Cartoon Saloon pictures, it shares an absolute faith in the untamed magic of earth and sea.
The story of Elmer (Jacob Tremblay), a little boy unhappy in the hostile big city, who finds adventure – and, in baby dragon Boris, a friend – on an imperilled island far away, the film (adapted from a 1948 children’s book by Ruth Stiles Gannett) is a strikingly lovely work. It’s also, in its gentle way, a potent eco-parable that sees the apes and marsupials of Wild Island threatened by rising sea levels and an off-kilter natural balance.
