I’m not even going to write a creative intro for this one. If you haven’t seen Sketch , which premiered at TIFF 2024, do it and do it NOW! I can’t remember the last time I was excited about a family-friendly movie like this. Sketch was my first screening on TIFF day six, and I was up at 5:30 am to make it to Toronto on time. There was no part of me that wanted to get out of bed, and I considered cancelling so many times. Once I finally got my butt in that theatre, Sketch had me hook, line and sinker within the first five minutes. I am so glad I didn’t cancel.
Sketch follows the Wyatt family sometime after the loss of their mother and wife. The youngest, Amber, is in trouble at school for drawing some pretty horrific sketches. Her pages are filled with monsters, death, blood and destruction. Amber’s father, Taylor, taught her perhaps the best analogy I’ve ever heard: “You can’t control your inbox, but you can control your outbox,” meaning that you can’t necessarily control how the world makes you feel, but you can control what you do about it. Her teacher encourages her to draw her feelings in a notebook, and even more monsters are created, giving her an outlet for all that anger.
“Sketch had me hook, line, and sinker within the first five minutes. I am so glad I didn’t cancel.”
That’s only half the story, however, because Sketch is a little more magical than that. While all this is happening, Amber’s brother Jack finds a pond near where their mother used to walk. After a fall and smashing his phone, he finds that the pond can fix things or maybe put life into them. When he plans to bring his mother’s ashes to the pond, Amber follows him, and in a battle to stop him, her notebook full of monsters falls in instead. All of the creatures she has thought up are coming to life, and the children need to find a way to stop them.
The description doesn’t do it justice. Sketch is by far one of the most creative films I have seen in ages. Not only is the story unique, but everything about it is well thought out and executed. Each creature and their special abilities are laugh-out-loud funny and the ways they are defeated are things right out of a child’s imagination.
Chalk drawings are destroyed with water, crayons with fire. Putting the tired, glitter-spewing monster to sleep with lullabies was a personal favourite, too. The absolute best, though, was the blind creature, which had a tiny seeing monster that scouted out enemies. To alert the blind creature to their location, it would go off like an alarm when it found them. You’ll know what I mean when you see it, and you’ll love it.
“Sketch is by far one of the most creative films I have seen in ages.”
What I loved the most about Sketch, however, is the way it respects the audience. This entire plot could be very easy to make, cheesy, campy and G-rated. Instead, Sketch gives you everything you might find on a usual family movie night but weaves horror tropes like suspenseful music and camera angles that build tension. I best describe it as a child’s first horror movie; everything is completely safe for kids, but they can still feel that thrill adults get from full-blown horror.
This is the first thing I have seen from writer/director Seth Worley, and he completely knocked this one out of the park. The dialogue, even between children, is consistently engaging and hilarious, and when it’s not, it’s meaningful. Sketch is ultimately a story about learning to deal with grief, and Worley covers it from so many perspectives with true insight. And hell, even the “butt” jokes are funny.
Sketch would not be what it is, though, without the right cast, and again, this couldn’t be more perfect. Tony Hale (Arrested Development, The Decameron) is hilarious as always as Father Taylor but has the chance to show off what he can do dramatically. He is so sincere in moments with his children and his sister Liz (D’Arcy Carden) as he comes to terms with not only the monsters coming to life but the loss of his wife. He needs to balance his own grief as well as navigate what his children need to get through it too.
Carden, as Liz, is the driving force behind Taylor’s character progression, but her comedic timing is never lost on me. She is gold. One of her more serious lines really stuck with me, though. It was something along the lines of “Stop worrying about the girl who is drawing her pain, and start worrying about the boys who are ignoring theirs.” This is not a direct quote, but it is ultimately what picks Taylor up and brings his grief to the forefront of the film.
“Sketch is ultimately a story about learning to deal with grief, and Worley covers it from so many perspectives with true insight. And hell, even the ‘butt’ jokes are funny.”
Even the children in Sketch feel perfectly cast. Bianca Bell as Amber and Kue Lawrence as Jack make the perfect brother and sister duo. Bell’s dark and twisted young girl is balanced by Lawrence’s energy and overwhelming need to be the big brother and fix it all. The third in their trio is Kahlon Cox, playing Bowman Lynch. Man, is this kid funny? Of course, a lot of that is great writing from Worley, but Cox delivers so well.
Where Sketch could have really fallen apart was its CGI child-drawn monsters. You’ve seen those stuffed animals they make of children’s drawings online. These are the things of nightmares. One drinks blood and spews it up, another swoops down to peck out eyes. Something about the way the monsters retained their “sketch-like” texture made for really interesting creatures. Some were adorable with terrifying talents, and others were just downright spooky.
Hats off to the CGI team and whoever created each monster in the first place. There were some twisted ideas brought to life through a child-like lens. Only once did I see an issue with someone reacting in the wrong spot to a creature, and it can be forgiven. Eye-ders. That’s all I’m going to say.
I have never been so happy to be blindsided by a film, especially at TIFF. Sketch is like a modern-day original take on something like Jumanji, and I haven’t seen a family-friendly movie this good in ages. I can’t wait to take my kids in theatres, and even if you don’t have children, Sketch has some great laughs and beautiful lessons about life and loss.
Check out more of CGMagazine’s TIFF 2024 coverage here throughout the festival.
