The Willoughbys (2020)

The Willoughbys arrives from Netflix with a pedigree that suggests wholesome family fare, then spends ninety minutes cheerfully depicting parental neglect, attempted patricide by brochure, and a fatal shark encounter. The four Willoughby children, abandoned by parents who regard them as furniture, scheme to become orphans. The film treats this as a lark. There is a genuine streak of class resentment running through the proceedings, aimed squarely at the idle rich who hoard ships in bottles and knit while their offspring go hungry. The parents' eventual consumption by a Great White is presented not as tragedy but as tidying up. A sharper piece of eat-the-rich comedy has rarely been packaged for children.

The emotional counterweight is Linda, the nanny, who sweeps in with warmth and competence the biological parents never muster. Her role carries a mild correction to domestic expectations, though the film is content to let her kindness speak for itself. The voice cast is diverse and accomplished, which has become table stakes for modern animation and here serves the ensemble without announcing itself. Beyond that, the film declines to sermonize. There is no racial commentary, no environmental reckoning, no therapeutic vocabulary about bodies or brains. The narrative is too busy with dirigibles and candy factories.

For all its grim mischief, the film keeps its moralizing light. It trusts the audience to draw conclusions from a shark. The lessons about family and chosen connection arrive through slapstick and song instead of speeches. That restraint is welcome and increasingly uncommon, a reminder that a story can hold a point of view without stopping to explain it.