In this Chinese legend-inspired children’s movie, renowned animator Glen Keane directs Over the Moon, a story about a young girl who travels to the moon to meet a moon goddess.
As a child, young Fei Fei loved listening to her mother tell the legend of Chang’e, a beautiful moon goddess who flew to the moon after eating both her and her lover’s immortality pills. However, Fei Fei’s idyllic life was cut short when her mother passed away. Years later, Fei Fei’s father falls in love with a new woman, Mrs. Zhong. Although Mrs. Zhong tries to make peace with Fei Fei, the young girl shrugs her off, believing that her father has forgotten her mother. Hoping to remind her father of the eternal love he and her mother shared, she builds a rocket to see Chang’e on the moon.
The animation of this film is nothing short of breathtaking. The fluidity of the characters’ movements and the bold, bright color palette makes the film pleasing to the eye. Over the Moon pays special attention to its animation of food. Steaming plates of pink shrimp, round and soft bao, and the delicate mooncakes are enough to make anyone’s mouth water. The food plays a huge role in emphasizing the warmth and bond of family. The mid-Autumn festival dinner is arranged with lavish dishes as Fei Fei and her grandparents, aunts, and uncles sit around the table under the moonlit sky. The intrusion of her father’s girlfriend disrupts Fei Fei’s sense of security and home, leading her to find solace in Chang’e.
However, Chang’e is nothing like what Fei Fei imagined. Instead of the nurturing, demure goddess Fei Fei expected, the real Chang’e is flamboyant, self-absorbed, and a bit of a diva. Chang’e makes her debut in the film with an extravagant concert, not dissimilar to modern pop icons like Lady Gaga, Dua Lipa, or Rina Sawayama. With catchy lyrics and fabulous costume changes, viewers are momentarily transported from a children’s movie to a music video.
Though Over the Moon boasts heavily of its seamless animation, it lacks narrative substance. The film spends more time on the visuals than building the characters. Although we see glimpses into Fei Fei’s personality, the pacing of the plot feels too rushed for the audience to relate to her. She’s smart, stubborn, romantic, and naïve, but her drive to build a rocket in order to stop her father’s second marriage seems to dominate all else. The overuse of cheap comic relief also halts the intimacy the film could have had in tackling such a heavy topic. If the film took more time to address how Fei Fei coped with her mother’s death at such a young age and how it affected her relationship with her father, there would be more sympathy for her reaction to her father’s new fiancée.
Her cathartic realization that her mother will always be with her and it is okay to move on also felt vapid. It does not seem like the kind of conclusion that required meeting a moon goddess for. A simple heart to heart with her father might have done the trick. Perhaps if more of the movie was spent on Fei Fei and Chang’e collaborating and sharing their grief, the climax may have held more emotion, but so much of Fei Fei’s journey was spent on her own.
The film was a little overambitious in tackling a topic as sensitive as loss while also doing extensive worldbuilding. It felt like the film digressed by chasing the fantastical over exploring the grieving process and accepting change. Despite this, the film does have positive themes to impart on young audiences, such as acceptance of change, selflessness, and independence. To older audiences, do not expect anything novel, but allow yourself to be swayed by the colorful animation and very catchy musical numbers.
3/5 STARS