The One and Only Ivan (2020)

Disney first approached screenwriter Mike White to adapt Katherine Applegate’s 2012 children’s book, “The One and Only Ivan,” which won the Newbery Medal in 2013. White wasn’t keen on adapting a children’s book, but he was emotionally affected after reading it. It was sad and poetic amid the cutesy aspect, with ethical challenges and inspiration, so decided he’d give it a go. Applegate based her book on a real-life account of a 400-pound silverback gorilla named Ivan. Ivan was born in 1962 and captured by poachers shortly after that. He spent 27 years in captivity at the B&I Public Marketplace in Tacoma, WA,  before the public demanded that he be able to find a better pasture.

The story centers around Ivan, a silverback gorilla who lives in a cage as the star of a struggling animal show at a suburban shopping center called the Big Top Mall & Video Arcade at Exit 8. Ivan’s main schtick is to roar and look intimidating, but behind the scenes, he is a thoughtful and sensitive soul. Other talented animals under the care of beleaguered ringleader Mack include a baseball-playing chicken, a sassy poodle, a bunny, a seal, a parrot, and an elderly elephant named Stella, plus a stray mutt called Bob.

Ivan befriends the young daughter of the mall cleaner who hands him supplies to draw, and it becomes something he takes an interest in doing, which has Mack seeing dollar signs to save his floundering circus attraction. An adorable baby elephant named Ruby arrives to become the latest attraction, under the tutelage and loving guidance of Stella. The drawing and painting, plus Ruby’s arrival, trigger Ivan’s memories of his childhood of freedom in the wild with his family, and Stella doesn’t want Ruby to live a sheltered life as she has had. Ivan plans to break free and deliver Ruby to a life of freedom.

White, the writer and director of 2007’s The Year of the Dog had experience with animal movies, was also planning to direct but decided he would only write for this one due to the technical challenges. White also appears in the film in a cameo role driving by the mall and provides the voice of Frankie, the seal. White felt the story needed a bit more locale expansion, more character-based humor, a more caper-like plot, and more story acceleration to work as a successful movie.

Mike Newell stepped in to direct but left the project after a few months. In 2017, Disney secured veteran theater director Thea Sharrock, coming off of her first big-screen effort, the romantic tearjerker hit, Me Before You. It’s a live-action film with CG animal characters, shot at Pinewood Studios in London with some external shots at Lakeland, Florida.

Angelina Jolie serves as a co-producer and does the voice of Stella, the elderly elephant. Jolie’s daughter Shiloh introduced the book to her, and she fell in love with the story of the mother passing along the wisdom to her child and seeing the next generation live better lives, which is what Stella does.

In early 2018, Sam Rockwell joined the voice cast as Ivan, not the voice I would imagine coming out of a massive gorilla, but he does grow on you. Soul singer Chaka Khan plays Henrietta the chicken. She hadn’t read the book but looked at the part and liked it enough to take it. She didn’t know what voice to give but tried a variety of chicken voices for about an hour with Danny DeVito before deciding her regular voice seemed to work best.

Bryan Cranston leads the live acting roles, playing Mack, who cares about his animals at the same time he is exploiting them for money. The book casts him a bit more as a villain, but the film shows the complex nature of his relationship, showing he loves Ivan, but also the fact that he’s been at the circus thing so long, he doesn’t have anything else to fall back on.  Disney and Sharrock agreed that it was better thematically to have conflicted characters rather than all animals good and all humans as bad. It helps to have an actor as able to evoke flawed humanity that Cranston delivers, nicely nuanced performance in a traditionally simplified Disney presentation.

Disney intended The One and Only Ivan to be a theatrical release.  However, due to COVID-19 and most theaters shut down, they decided to debut the film on their Disney+ service. The film’s themes of isolation may seem particularly relevant when families are stuck at home. People in green costumes were used in place of the animals for the live-action scenes, with the CG added later. The vocal talent prerecorded their dialogue, and motion capture actors would physically act them out later.

Making flashbacks to Ivan’s childhood starker, contemporary scenes did not have any green whatsoever. When we finally see all of that green beauty of Ivan’s childhood, it is more striking to behold.

The One and Only Ivan is a more relaxed and less snarky film for kids. The characters are cute, but not cartoonish, opting for photorealistic CG depictions of the animals. These animals are anthropomorphic characters that talk to each other when humans aren’t around. It’s a patient film, predictable if you’ve seen your share. It’s aimed at the younger set, opening them up to their feelings that many animated cineplex adventures tend to ignore. Nevertheless, there is still plenty of jocularity and fun characters to enjoy in the middle of the more serious and emotional moments.

Messages include the need for self-expression, as well as an animal rights plea, questioning whether removing animals from their natural habitats is a beneficial thing. There is also the notion that loving someone sometimes means letting them go to where they might be most happy, even if that means saying goodbye. Perhaps lost on kids but potent to adults may be a lesson on the exploitation of nature for capitalism, shutting off one’s ability to empathize for the sake of profit. In some ways, it shadows Disney’s stance on using animals in films, once embracing it for a profit before later determining that it wasn’t the way to go. Of course, they can afford to recreate the animals with sophisticated computer generation, often working better than trying to train real animals to do the same things.

While the technical prowess fares better than its storytelling, it’s a glossy but heartwarming tale that should please younger children and those who enjoy Disney family fare.

Qwipster’s rating: B

MPAA Rated: PG for mild thematic elements
Run time: 95 min.

Cast: Bryan Cranston, Ariana Greenblatt, Ramon Rodriguez, Owain Arthur, Phillipa Soo, Mike White
Voices: Sam Rockwell, Danny DeVito, Brooklynn Prince, Angelina Jolie, Chaka Khan, Ron Funches, Helen Mirren
Director: Thea Sharrock
Screenplay: Mike White (based on the book by Katherine Applegate)