Come Away Reviews

Summary Eight-year-old Alice (Keira Chansa), her mischievous brother Peter (Jordan A. Nash) and their brilliant older sibling David (Reece Yates) let their imaginations run wild one blissful summer in the English countryside. Encouraged by their parents Jack and Rose (David Oyelowo and Angelina Jolie), the kids' make-believe tea parties, sword f...

• Adventure

• Drama

• Fantasy

Come Away is just a heart-rending, joyful, and gorgeous movie that everyone should take their kids to go see.

It just feels like a pretty idea that didn’t get fully developed; an origin story that we didn’t need.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Come Away is just a heart-rending, joyful, and gorgeous movie that everyone should take their kids

Awash in good intentions and weighed down by its grim premise, Come Away is a fantasy that fails to inspire, despite its star power (including David Oyelowo and Angelina Jolie) and occasionally clever flourishes.

Between the siblings' adventure scenes, family tragedies and familiar characters it's hard to stay engaged with a film so gloomy, sad and sluggish. In the end, you’re left wondering what was real, whether it was all just a dream or if you're just too grown up to understand.

Like a magic brew thinned into bouillon, Come Away folds spellbinding storybook tales into a mundane melodrama.

The ending that seems meant to be wistful, even magical, reads instead as appalling, lamentable, gloomy, however you want to say “the opposite of wondrous and happy.”

Come Away evokes memories of “Radio Flyer,” the equally appalling 1992 child abuse drama where fantasy and cruel reality merged in ways that were shockingly offensive.

It's a good movie. The script, director and actors are all perfect. Please watch this interesting movie. It is a work that you will never regret watching.

One word review: Offensive. Five Word review: Offensive pandering cultural appropriation. Stop. Full review: Lets get the good out of the way here first. It is a retelling and reimagining of Peter pan that is not from the #EvilestCorporationOnEarth. Moreover it is effectively a movie for children devoid of that "magic" influence which in and of itself is a positive. Secondly it is a DARK reimagining of it. Much closer to the source material and again that is definitely a big positive in this productions favor. To some that seems inappropriate but I point to the whole of Grimms fairy tales and more modern classics like The Secret Of NIHM or 9 that show that dark stories are in fact positive for children. Beyond that you get adequate performances out of Jolie Oyelowo and Michael Caine as you would expect from actors of their caliber. The children are a much more mixed and all together inadequate bag, even for child actors. That is a big problem for a film focused around children Sadly thats where the good ends. . The film is eye rollingly preachy and unwatchable. Finger wagging you to death about how much white guilt you should feel. It is also insulting to the audiences it panders to because it is taking a white narrative and transposing it over black actors as if that is good enough, instead of drawing from the rich narrative history from various black cultural childrens stories. This is done specifically because audiences like safe, familiar things and those stories are basically unknown to mass audiences. So instead of taking a chance of telling an authentic and appropriate story the hope was casting black actors into a white narrative would be sufficient. Unfortunately it has exactly the opposite effect of being offensive to both white and POC parents alike. So both will skip showing it to their children. The overall production could have been so much better. It suffers a lot of not fourth wall breaking "suspension of disbelief" requirement inherent to kids films as plot threads unravel out aimlessly. The pacing is bland and unimaginative. Slow and plodding its way with all the pretension and foppishness of a Downton Abbey that will either cause children to get bored and become rambunctious, thus negating the purpose of children's entertainment, Or lull them to sleep, thus negating the purpose of being entertainment. Ill grant the whole thing a 4. Its far from the worst thing Ive ever seen. I am trying to give credit to all the people who worked to make it. That said it fails to be what every video media is supposed to be. Entertaining which is the cardinal sin of movies & TV. Doing so in such an insulting and pandering method leaves the good work the performers TRIED to accomplish as something completely unwatchable. This is basically empty theater/living room entertainment at its most unwatchable.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Повестка ради повестки и ничего более. Даже фильмом язык не поворачивается это назвать

This film is simply disgusting for what it was filmed for. This is not a film, it cannot be called that, this is just propaganda of liberalism, which is already enough everywhere. I'm so tired of this.

Young Artist Awards

• 1 Win & 1 Nomination

Australian Cinematographers Society

• 1 Win & 1 Nomination