Lost Ollie Review: A Mix Of Delicacy, Tenderness, Melancholy and Yearning
Stars: Jonathan Groff, Jake Johnson, Gina Rodriguez
Creator: Shannon Tindle
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars)
Released on Netflix on August 24, 2022, Lost Ollie, the animated miniseries based on the novel Ollie and the forgotten toys by William Joyce that Shannon Tindle is working on for the script. The director is Oscar winner Peter Ramsey who collaborated with Joyce on The 5 Legends. Lost Ollie stages with its 4 episodes the nightmare of any child: losing his playmate, his favorite puppet; this time the lost game is Ollie (voiced in the original version by Jonathan Groff), a wonderful patchwork bunny, but getting lost is also the nightmare of the rag friend who suddenly finds himself inside a box, in an antique shop, with the price tag attached to his ear.
Panic, fear and despair. How do you do without Billy? Don’t do it: Ollie has to go back to Billy, the name of his owner, it’s too little, of the child he played with, still not the right description, of his best friend. Lost Ollie tells the crazy and desperate journey – in mixed media, made with a mixture of real settings and characters and others created in CGI – of the rabbit to find his Billy, despite not having, at least at the beginning, enough memory to remember what happened to take him away from the child, and to do so he will have to rebuild his memory castle piece by piece, thanks to a map that will lead him through an epic adventure and full of hope.
Lost Ollie Review: The Story
Lost Ollie tells a big and small story that has many shades, many folds and sores within it: it has pain, love, adventure, bullying, illness, desire and duty to grow up, loss and every feeling, every moment, every thrust lives on in Billy (Kesler Talbot) and Ollie. Through a story that has perhaps already been seen – it is certainly not the first time that the journey of a toy has been shown to find its way home – we get to touch the deepest chords of the human soul and this is because it is also Billy’s story, a 9-year-old boy who loses his best friend just as his childhood changes course when events greater than him fall upon him. When Ollie wakes up and finds himself in an unfamiliar place, he decides to put his fear and terror aside because out there, somewhere in his Billy who needs him, desperately, his mom is sick and, you understand immediately, something has happened to her, and he cannot and must not leave him alone.
Both Ollie and Billy are fighting in unison to be reunited, both small in a world far too big scrambling to find each other’s best friend. The tender Billy hangs up posters in which he portrayed his Ollie, while the rabbit on his side made a map where he drew every important place to understand how far it is from home. Lost Ollie it is a story steeped in warmth but it is also full of tears, fears, and those of those who feel lost, and alone it dialogues with melancholy, nostalgia and hope, the one that is rediscovered thanks to Ollie and Billy who believe even in the most difficult moments that nothing is lost, even when everything seems lost they are united because many small threads keep them tied.
Lost Ollie Review and Analysis
Like Toy Story, you can watch the toys come to life, and talk, but like Seven Minutes After Midnight, you can also see the pain of a child whose mother is in pain. Billy, a fourth grader who has lost far more than his favorite toy, is growing up on something of an initiation journey: we only see him, Ollie is his haven when things get complicated, and so alone he faces bullies, agony, the lack. As the two fight overcoming the same stages, almost at the same time, they share a treasure, the happy memories of life before their separation. Dressed as pirates they live wonderful adventures, they play together with their parents, played by Gina Rodriguez and Jake Johnson, they share the love, the smiles, but also unfortunately the wounds, the gashes – not everyone talks with pain in the same way, one is not always ready, even if one is an adult, to lose and suffer.
Billy’s father would like him more mature because he fears that the events that are happening will ask him to grow up soon, invites him to leave the stuffed animal at home and this affects the viewer because that moment has arrived in the life of every child. Across the fence, next to the baby and Ollie, is Billy’s mom embracing her childish imagination, defending it for her because he’s a precious gift to her. Lost Ollie is a lyrical and at times heartbreaking animated and human series in which the feelings, the moments, and the hugs are real, alive, a memory that digs into the memory of the beholder.
Ollie is a symbol of safety and light-heartedness, typical of a certain childhood, when Billy loses it is because a bit of that safety and light-heartedness is no longer there so that extreme and beautiful journey of one to the other is heroic and boyish together. Life has asked the protagonist in flesh and blood to forget games and fun but he – as well as his companion in adventures, is too attached to that stuffed brother towards whom he feels an unimaginable love not to try. The four episodes are striking because both Ollie and Billy are great little heroes, determined, ready to fight their battles, together even if separated because they have been working at/for this moment: distance does not destroy relationships if they are solid. Ollie meets other characters he involves in his search for him: Zozo (Tim Blake Nelson), a sage or so it seems because many are hiding a dark side clown and Rosy (Mary J Blige), a brave teddy bear who appears gruff and stiff but things are not always as they appear.
Despite their reticence, even for them, it is necessary to cross paths with Ollie: although they do not experience the same kind of bewilderment that he does, they too are wandering. You experience a very strong emotion because, along this journey your breath is suspended, you participate in Ollie’s Odyssey who is touched by the beautiful or painful memories that resurface in his mind and push him towards his beloved Billy, and also that of his companions who will bring to the surface other equally heartbreaking and poignant stories.
Lost Ollie Review: The Last Words
Lost Ollie is a marvel for the eyes, it is the narration of two lost children who make, at the same time, a journey and at its conclusion, they will probably never be the same, they will have grown up and matured. The series, consisting of four episodes, is sweet, magical and tender, draws heavily on a certain world, fabulous but also frightening as only the stories of the little ones can be, capable of communicating with the darkest rooms. to Mark Twain, to the Wizard of Oz – it is no coincidence that there is talk of another journey and another return. The miniseries is touching, delicate, and moving, it makes you go back to being a child, at a time when everyone had their stuffed rabbit, makes you smile with tears in your eyes and cry in pain, you feel anger and you feel betrayed because life is unfair and yet, in the end, the little great heroes are kissed by luck and a lucky star.
