The Magician’s Elephant: Soaring to Heights of Childhood Courage and Imagination

Plot via IMDB:

The Magician’s Elephant follows Peter, who is searching for his long-lost sister. When he crosses paths with a fortune teller in the market square, he want to know, is his sister still alive? To get the answer, he must find a mysterious elephant and the magician who will conjure it, setting Peter off on a journey to complete three seemingly impossible tasks that will change the face of his town.

If you’re looking for an animal symbol that perfectly defines childhood you can hardly do better than the elephant . They have bigness, grandeur as well as moments of awkwardness. They also perfectly fit the dimension of the big screen or the jumbo screen of your television. In real life they may not be magical, but animated they are awesome and cute.

In The Magician’s Elephant, streaming on Netflix, a boy, Peter (Noah Jupe) must complete three seemingly impossible task to find the younger sister he thought died at birth. Of course, it will prove the opposite- nothing is impossible if your heart is in the right place. The elephant is the prize that allows Peter to begin his quest. The irony is that the sibling reunion Peter desires has been hidden in front of his face all the time.

The three trials imposed by the King for which the elephant is Peter’s just reward are best the city’s fiercest warrior in single combat, fly and make a bereaved countess laugh for the first time since her brother died in battle. The echoes of war and the bereavement it causes hang over the story like a sheet waiting to be removed from a sofa in a summer house. Peter and the Kingdom of Baltese must overcome their grief, even if it seems an impossibility, in order to move forward and have a functioning society. Peter must not only find his sister but the villagers must find themselves and each other by lowering their walls and coming together for the common good. “I will find her,” becomes the film’s mantra. They all just need to remember that the effort is both good and worthwhile.

Elephant was directed by first-time helmer Wendy Rogers from a script by Toy Story 4 scribe Martin Hynes, who adapted Newberry Award winner Kate DiCamillo’s YA novel. Their story beats are familiar, but Peter is easy to root for and the animation itself has an elegant quality befitting the narrative’s whimsy. That’s especially true of the unnamed pachyderm, who at one point has a dream of her family in which they all swim underwater together. It’s an evocative sequence, the kind you can’t help wishing The Magician’s Elephant featured more of. What there is, is enough for tomorrow.