The Danish animated film The Space Guest is hitting the screens, attracting attention with its bright visuals and eccentric characters. The key to any film's success is knowing who it's made for. So who is the target audience for the new film by director Amalie Næsby Fick?
Synopsis
Little Allan is struggling with his parents' divorce but stubbornly pretends everything is fine. He and his father are trying to settle into a new place while his mother focuses on her career. Allan feels lonely and desperately craves connection—which leads him to the doorstep of a strange neighbor who is obsessed with UFOs.
Together, they are about to discover a real alien girl and make first contact between humans and a representative of another civilization—and they have very little time, because the space guest needs their help, and a real danger looms over them...
A Bit About the Animation
Let's be honest—we're not prudes. We don't even dream that all animated films should look like Pixar or DreamWorks. Quite the opposite: a certain stylization is always a good thing, and there's plenty of stylization here. That's not the problem.
The problem is that, lacking the budgets of major studios, The Space Guest tries very hard to do what Hollywood does. And that doesn't work in its favor. It stubbornly attempts to create something similar to Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (down to the identical animation of hands typing on a keyboard), clearly lacking its own identity.
Again, animation isn't the biggest issue. The main thing is that it should serve a good story.
A Bit About the Plot
But here too, The Space Guest faces problems. Because what we get is a story that's been told over and over again. Aliens are an extremely complex topic, as we have examples of excellent animated films, each offering something new.
<i>Lilo & Stitch</i> perfectly handled the parallels between an alien adapting to Earth and two sisters trying to live a normal life. <i>The Secret of the Third Planet</i> focused on travel and exploration of the unknown. Even the audience-unfriendly <i>Chicken Little</i> attempted a comedy about an alien invasion.
And The Space Guest does have a great emotional core—not many animated films dare to talk about divorce where there are no right or wrong parties, just people who have fallen out of love. And that was excellent! Emotional, honest, yet not harsh and as simple as possible. That is, until the slightly forced space story kicks in.
In the end, we get action for the very young, because for older children, all the plot twists are obvious, and the characters' actions are predictable. And here lies the biggest problem, in my opinion.
Who Is The Space Guest For?
Because it's clearly not for adults, as we've already explained. The characters aren't very well developed, the villain has the simplest motivation in the world (though amusingly played out toward the end), and the theme of divorce gradually fades into the background.
And if the film had proudly said, 'Yes, I'm for little kids!'—I wouldn't have said a word against it. But I shudder to think that if I were that little child going to the cinema, I would have been led out in tears. Not because there are scary scenes. But because I personally . <i>The Space Guest</i>, unfortunately, doesn't take into account six-year-olds with the same fragile psyche I had.
I'm not even mentioning the divine jokes about excrement or the strange emphasis on female secondary sexual characteristics. They just pale in the overall tonal imbalance. Perhaps they can be chalked up to differences in mentality, but Amalie Næsby Fick was aiming for the international market.
Although... Maybe I'm overthinking it, and children won't notice any of that, and it's all aimed at the parents who will undoubtedly accompany them. Maybe I'm even being overly moralistic. Because in the end, the story of little Allan about the importance of expressing one's emotions, about how it's bad to keep everything inside and not let emotions out—is correct, and it's wrapped up quite nicely. Plus, one of the key scenes is written and animated magically.
Conclusion
I won't say whether you should watch this film or not. That's a parent's decision. The Space Guest clearly knows how to entertain, it has a pleasant moral, and a great retro-wave soundtrack. But everything said above should also be kept in mind when making that decision.
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