Practical effects are on display in director Isaiah Saxon’s feature debut, The Legend of Ochi. Channeling an ‘80s style of filmmaking with puppets and models, the first-time director shows us the darker side of animal and human friendships and an even nastier side of broken families.
Young Yuri (Helena Zengal) lives on a fictional primitive Balkan island with her father, Maxim (William Dafoe), and adopted brother, Petro (Finn Wolfhard). Her father is the self-appointed town protector, keeping the livestock and citizens safe from a mysterious and supposedly vicious medium-sized primate called the Ochi. Think of if a Gremlin, Baby Yoda, and Momo from Avatar: The Last Airbender had a baby. Petro was orphaned by such creatures, prompting Maxim to take him and train him, and many of the village boys to hunt them. Yuri’s mother, Dasha (Emily Watson), left when she was young, fed up with her husband’s hatred of the animals.
After a hunting night goes awry, Yuri encounters an abandoned ochi caught in a trap and brings it back to her home to heal. There, she learns how to bond with it enough for the creature to trust her to lead it back to its pack. Her family quickly follows behind her, causing mayhem in their wake.
The narrative holds many similarities to the first two How to Train Your Dragon films, but fails to have a fraction of the heart that that franchise captured. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Ochi strays from being too precious or schmaltzy, which it needs. However, Yuri’s disastrous human home life fails to hold your attention the way Saxon desires you to. I appreciate that he uses Dafoe and Watson, but all I wanted to do was spend time with Yuri and the young Ochi.
You may know Zengel from her breakout as Tom Hanks’ kidnapped charge in 2020’s News of the World. Here, her delivery is very dry, and her best screen partner is the Ochi puppet. She brings a wonderful physicality to the part, reminiscent of a young Henry Thomas in E.T. However, her accent was so thick at times, I couldn’t understand it, and with no subtitles, I lost quite a bit of her dialogue.
Dafoe is giving full character actor with this part, something he has been doing a lot lately. Watson’s character feels one-note and not fully fleshed out the way she should be in order for the emotional beats to land. Wolfhard, known for his breakout role in Stranger Things and in the Ghostbusters franchise, is given nothing to do. While The Legend of Ochi was filmed in 2021 and the actor didn’t have quite the name recognition he has now, he had enough to warrant more than five lines.
Saxon does a lot right with this film. The Legend of Ochi is visually lush and has some of the best puppetry I’ve seen in years. He makes a case for practical effects that modern studios should make a note of. Saxon certainly has vision, but those details often get swallowed up by an emotionally stunted story arc — at least between the humans.
The Legend of Ochi is in theaters now via A24.
