Movie review: “A Different World” – Disney has never done this before

See all reviews

In a secluded valley high in the Himalayas lies the small community of Avallonia. Here, the quintessential Shangri-La utopia has been achieved, thanks to the cultivation of a type of electric grapevine called Bando. Pandoen lays the foundation for all of the technology in the valley, something Searcher Clade (Jakob Oftebro) brought home from an expedition 25 years ago, when he was just a teenager.

colorful ecosystem

On the same expedition, Searcher is abandoned by his father, the legendary adventurer Hunter, who has brutally devalued his family in favor of reaching the other side of the mountain range that surrounds the valley. The plan was to come back at some point, but he didn’t.

Hats off to this movie!

When the pandu crop fails, Searcher, who has distanced himself from everything his father stood for and embraced farming instead, must reluctantly embark on a new expedition. With the help of a giant balloon, the journey takes off to Pando’s common roots, which lie in a colorful, almost extraterrestrial ecosystem, far beyond Earth’s surface. With him is his wife, the dog, and his father’s old staff, not least his son Ethan, who struggles to understand him as much as his father did to him.

And at the risk of spoiling: You can guess who they’ll find there in 25 years. Here the stage is set for generational conflict.

Visually captivating

A visually enchanting and captivating “Different World” – The biggest star is undoubtedly the wonderful new world that hides beneath the earth. Funny, funny and spooky creatures float in the air, stomp over mountain plateaus that look like mushrooms, or hide in pigeon grass that mostly looks like pastel colored rubber tubes.

It’s as if the planet Pandora from “Avatar” was given a children’s version.

Very sarcastic

But A Different World is also making it hard on itself. A thriller, ambitious enough, without “bad guys”, should at least make the characters and relational sit down. But the film deals so lightly with potentially deep relational and inner conflicts, particularly with Ethan, the representative of the rising generation, who is so flawless and one-dimensional that it simply becomes somewhat boring. Which is a shame, because he’s also – as far as I can tell – Disney’s first openly gay main character. The fact that humor is rarely more than half funny doesn’t help either.

The level of thematic ambition is high, and the relatively unexpected plot twist toward the end works well both to make a number of seemingly separate elements click into place into a larger whole, and to enact the metaphorical narrative in a way that kids can hang on to, too.

The obviously related accounts of humans’ arrogant predation of nature and their litany of accumulated sins and character-based blind spots, though, don’t always intertwine as satisfactorily as they should.