Over the Moon: Charming Animation Puts Science-Loving Girl in the Spotlight (and on the Moon!)

By Thom Ernst

Rating: B

Fei Fei (Cathy Ang) is a bright, resourceful girl determined to go to the moon.

She is out to prove to her family that the tales her late mother told of a moon goddess awaiting the return of her true love are real.

For many years Fei Fei’s lives a charmed life with her mother and father. Her days are full, helping her parents sing about baking and selling moon cakes at a busy downtown marketplace. Her nights are full of her mother’s tales of the legend of Chang’e (Phillipa Soo), the moon goddess (these stories are also sung).

Read our interview with Over the Moon star Cathy Ang

Fei Fei’s mother grows ill and soon, she passes, leaving father and daughter to care for each other and continue the family business. Despite her mother’s death, life for Fei Fei remains good. But when her father introduces another woman into the family, along with her precocious eight-year old son, proving Chang’e’s existence becomes even more urgent.

Over the Moon is a delightful tale sure to appeal to a younger audience without too much fear of chasing away the rest of the family. Older children might not respond as readily to the deluge of familiar loveable bubbly characters — in this case, an overly optimistic space blob named Gobi (Ken Jeong) and Bungee (Edie Ichioka), an adorable and slightly flirtatious long-eared bunny.

Director Glen Keane and co-director John Kahrs have both worked on Disney films (Beauty and the Beast, Tangled). Their Disney influences come early in the movie, subtly in characters vaguely reminiscent of what might be called Disney types (cute bunnies, comical frogs, and a beautiful princess-like goddess), and more blatantly in a moment evoking the Disney castle lighting up at night.

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But the animation is strong, varying in styles from three-dimensional computer animation to one-dimensional matte drawings, pulling inspiration from a berth as wide as Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon to RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Of course, none of this matters to younger audiences buying into a story of a girl risking ridicule and failure to confront the impossible. There is enough adventure—meteor storms, giant hungry moon toads, and biker chicks (literally chickens riding motorcycles)—to light-up young imaginations.

One of the film’s highlights is the character Chin (Robert G. Chiu), the eight-year-old soon-to-be stepbrother who thrills at the prospect of having a big sister and holds an unfounded belief that he can run through walls. Chin is the real comic relief and the film’s warmest delight. Chiu’s vocal performance fills Chin with an undaunted eagerness that perfectly suits his animated counterpart.

Over the Moon is a musical with songs ranging from ballads to water-downed hip-hop. And though I found most of the musical numbers forgettable they are, for their moments on screen, a minor and somewhat harmless distraction. As a musical highlight, I look again at Chin, who performs a rap-like duet with the moon goddess while competing in a heated ping pong match.

A dedication at the end of the film acknowledges the passing of the film’s screenwriter, Audrey Wells (The Hate U Give), who died of cancer in 2018. Knowledge of her passing, given the story’s mystical element of love and connection transcending death, further the film’s credibility.

Over the Moon comes to Netflix perfectly timed to give younger Halloween revelers a full moon, an otherworldly alternative to the traditionally more frightening fare that comes out at this time.

Over the Moon. Directed by Glen Keane, co-directed by John Kahrs. Starring Cathy Ang, Phillipa Soo, Sandra Oh, Robert G. Chui, Ken Jeong, and Edie Ichioka. Available on Netflix starting October 23.