Lost Ollie
Released on Netflix on August 24, 2022
Episode: 5 Episodes (Around 45 minutes each)
Rated TV-PG
Based on a book, Ollie’s Oddesy by William Joyce, this four episode miniseries follows a lost stuffed rabbit named Ollie. Ollie wakes up after being separated from his owner and sets off on an adventure to find him. Ollie comes across two other toys that travel with him on his adventure, but they seem to have a mysterious past. When I watched the trailer I was expecting a children’s/family movie, but I believe the language and darker themes may keep many families at bay. The toy characters, like Ollie, seem to be able to speak to children and adults that still have lots of imagination.
There are four episodes and each one is around forty five minutes long.
Themes:
Themes in the movie include family, betrayal, growing up, terminal illness, death, friendship, love, loss, anger, bullying, hate, family, imperfection, helping one another, being controlled by your emotions, life experiences changing you forever.
Language:
There are around seven religious exclamations, crap is said several time, piss ant is used as an insult, dang it and heck are both used multiple times, and sucks. Some worse words that are used at least four or more times each are damn, hell, ass, and one chapter says son of a ….but stops before saying the last word in the phrase.
Stuff to be aware of:
There are some intense scenes in this movie and it can be dark at times. Because of his experience and background one character (a toy) lets his anger and rage control him. He tears the stuffing out of another toy which is seen on screen and it is implied that he has broken (murdered) other toys. There is a fight scene in which he rips something out of another toy and leaves the toy dead. Two toy characters are stabbed with a sword and killed. I will note that in the movie world a toy dies when it is broken or the stuffing is taken out, but it can be sewed up or fixed and brought back to life. There is fighting (toys and human children), bullying, and name calling multiple times.
There is a human character that has a terminal illness and eventually dies. A human child is neglected by his father after a death, until the father snaps out of it. One character mentions a G.I. Joe figure going up a cat’s butt and there are a few scenes in a bar with some background charterers drinking.
Overall:
I have mixed feelings about this movie. It kind of plays our like a Greek tragedy, but there is so much depth that includes pain, loss, and suffering. I loved the character of Ollie who represents so much of the idea of childhood hope, imagination, wonder, and excitement. I also grew to love the gruff Rosie character. There are a lot of lessons to be learned form this miniseries. It is dark at points, but by the end of the series I had cried several times. I do no believe this movie was designed for children, but I think it was meant to resonate with adults. It made me think back on my own childhood and how being a child can be so much fun, but growing up and learning about death, loss, and how everyone has low points in their lives can be so hard.
This movie is sad, and I don’t think it is one that I would watch multiple times. Over the course of it’s four episode length there were times that I did not like the direction it was going (and I didn’t like the cursing), but I am glad I stuck it out to the end. I connected with so many themes and characters in this movie. When it ended I walked away with a funny feeling of not liking it, but also not being able to dislike it. I know, weird right? It is an emotional roller coaster that deals with real world themes that we have all felt, but at the end there are so many nice little twists and connections that I left with a smile, even though I frowned a lot on the journey.
If you don’t like movies that are sad or characters that are driven to do bad things because of their loss, I would skip this one. However, if you don’t mind some dark story lines and characters this movie might touch you in a way that no other movie that I can remember did for me.