Finally, a Donnie Darko for tots! Combine Donnie Darko’s apocalyptic bunny friend, preternatural phenomena and sharp commentary on contemporary society with a spoon full of sugar, and you get The Last Mimzy. The film is adapted from Lewis Padgett’s (husband and wife team C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner) acclaimed 1943 short story, “Mimsy Were the Borogoves.”
Their title and pseudonym allude to Lewis Carroll (Charles Ludwidge Dodgson) and his “Jabberwocky” poem from Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. With a score from award-winning composer, Howard Shore, including a collaboration with Roger Waters ("Hello I Love You"), the movie is a trippy affair. Like the literary works that inspired it, The Last Mimzy gazes at the world through an unusual lens.
A first glimpse through this lens reveals a world where the kids talk like adults and worship at the altar of technology. In keeping with the film’s motif, Noah (Chris O’Neill as one of the two sibling protagonists) loves his videogames. His sister, Emma (Rhiannon Leigh Wryn), is a ten-year-old who peers at the world through large eyes and loves astronomy. Leigh Wryn’s subtle performance channels the stubborn love and innocence of childhood without being overly sentimental.
The family spends Easter vacation on Whidbey Island, whose untouched beauty serves as an antidote to modern society. The camera follows them as they arm themselves with boogie boards to explore the natural world. Noah and Emma find mysterious objects floating in the waves that give them powers ranging from teleportation and psychokinesis to telepathy.
The mysterious objects also increase the children’s intelligence. Noah, an average student, suddenly spawns a genius science project using his newfound ability to communicate with spiders, while Emma’s brain development shoots off the charts. One of the toys is a semi-organic, nanotechnological marvel in the form of a stuffed rabbit named Mimzy. Mimzy provides Emma with information about the present and future world. Like Calvin with Hobbes, the crux of their special bond is that Emma is the only one who can understand Mimzy.
Noah’s teacher Larry White (Rainn Wilson) serves as the children's guide to their new, supernatural world. Larry is no average instructor. He wears an earring and tries to make the listless youngsters comprehend the cultural pollutants that are poisoning their society; however, the pencil-twirling children don’t appear overly concerned about the implications of their downward sloping civilization. A sleepy blonde girl raises her hand and lazily inquires why “they” don’t do something. Larry replies, “Who is this ‘they?’ ‘They’ is all of us.”
The roots of Larry’s quirks are revealed when the film takes us to his home, complete with a meditating girlfriend, Naomi (Kathryn Hahn), with whom he reminisces about prophetic dreams and trips to Tibet. When Noah starts doodling mandalas, it is Larry who recognizes that he is drawing symbolic representations of the universe.
As a work of art, The Last Mimzy is limited by the tender age of its audience, which is the only imaginable culprit for a corny ending after such graceful handling of difficult subject matter. As a children’s movie, however, The Last Mimzy is a gem. The film has taken guff for being convoluted, but this is because its greatest strength and weakness is its mind-blowing ambition and originality. Children deserve a movie that makes them think and feel. From Lewis Carroll’s dream child to Robert Shaye’s perceptive directorial touch, The Last Mimzy is the work of creative giants.
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