The Big Picture

Harold and the Purple Crayon
introduces a “grown-up” Harold who transports his imaginative world to reality using a magic crayon.
The film features well-cast actors playing naive, humorous characters in a conceptually intriguing plot.
Despite promising elements, the movie’s narrative, thematic, and plot developments frequently fall short in execution.

As the history of fiction, film, and television would have you believe, imagination is quite possibly the greatest power in the universe. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but imagination is its father. Many world religions posit omnipotent beings of vast power who can do great feats with nothing more than a thought. Comic books give us characters like The Beyonders, Franklin Richards, Doctor Manhattan, or the various Lanterns of Green Lantern lore, who can conjure or manipulate all sorts of objects or beings with their minds alone. Children’s programming, like Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, constantly reminds children to embrace the power of their creativity. The 1955 children’s book Harold and the Purple Crayon, written and drawn by Crockett Johnson, welcomes children with exactly this dream-fulfilling wish: what if a child had a magic device that allowed them to create literally anything they could dream of?

The book spawned a series of follow-up stories following Harold and his various experiences and adventures, and Carlos Saldanha’s Harold and the Purple Crayon is, at its core, a sequel of sorts to them. The film stars Zachary Levi as a version of Harold who has grown into an adult (of sorts) in his imagination-built world, along with his friends, Moose (Lil Rel Howery) and Porcupine (Tanya Reynolds). He interacts with the ‘Old Man,’ the godlike narrator (Harold series author Crockett Johnson, as voiced by Alfred Molina) who created Harold and his world to begin with. One day, Harold decides to venture out and find the Old Man in his world, our real-life world, pouring Harold, Moose, and Porcupine into our reality and setting in motion a surreal set of experiences for the innocent, cartoonish character. There are quite a few elements to like about Harold, including its smart casting, entertaining meta-concepts, and its ability to find humor in chaos, but it’s a film with nearly as many conceptual, narrative, and thematic misses as hits.

Harold and the Purple Crayon A young boy named Harold embarks on a magical mission with the help of his purple crayonRelease Date August 2, 2024 Director Carlos Saldanha Writers David Guion , Michael Handelman

What is ‘Harold and the Purple Crayon’ About?

Harold technically grew up in the world the Old Man created, channeling his imagination through the purple crayon to provide anything his heart conceives and desires, but in a way, he didn’t grow up at all. In this world of pure imagination, anything he needed or desired was provided by the Old Man or his own creative powers, so he was spared from many of the realities of our world. These realities create a mystery for Harold when, seemingly out of nowhere, the Old Man stops speaking. It’s unsettling for Harold and his friends because he has never been without the Old Man’s voice, so Harold decides to use his magic crayon to create a door to our world (with Moose and Porcupine in tow).

The purple crayon still has imagination-fueled, reality-warping powers in our world, but there are a few differences–Moose and Porcupine are human (though the former turns into an actual moose at times when scared). As they set out to find the Old Man, Harold and crew encounter widow Terri (Zooey Deschanel) and her son Mel (Benjamin Bottani) during a dangerous encounter with Terri’s car, and eventually find an antagonist in failed writer/nefarious librarian Gary Naswich (Jemaine Clement).

It’s an interesting route to take for the live-action adaptation of a beloved children’s book. Making the narrative a live-action entry following an adult Harold in our own world, the world of the series’ author, does allow for a wider (and more cinematic) range of circumstances than merely the simple story of a boy using a crayon to draw things like animal friends out of thin air. It’s additionally an interesting way to play with the implications of the purple crayon. First, in our real world, an overgrown child warping reality would create massive chaos and confusion, which is great for both humor and drama. Second, the books have a cartoon Harold creating objects that are a bit rougher in style and form than himself (his creations are in one color of crayon, after all), while his creations here are in our real world, permitting extravagant detail (though still purple as ever). Finally, it’s a unique opportunity for Harold, a creator, to examine his own existence as a subordinate creation (it’s an opportunity that the film doesn’t make full use of, but the potential is there). All this makes Harold and the Purple Crayon one of the wilder live-action, young-audience-friendly films in recent years.

The leads in Harold and the Purple Crayon are, overall, well cast. Zachary Levi continues to cement his tradition of playing naive, childlike characters in grown men’s bodies, but it largely works in the portrayal of a man in ignorance of the realities of our world. Zooey Deschanel embodies Terri sufficiently well, which is no surprise given her seasoned ability to portray characters shepherding childishly naive, sheltered grown men from supernatural realms (Elf, anyone?) through the dangers of human cities. Lil Rel Howery and Tanya Reynolds are consistently solid and charming as Moose and Porcupine, despite being accidentally hampered by their curious removal from major plot moments (especially with respect to the latter). Jemaine Clement shows he has the makings of a properly menacing villain, and he does his best here, but the material undermines his character’s potential threat by emphasizing his family-friendly ‘goofy failure’ nature. There’s a solid cast here with real potential, but the plotting in practice makes for a mixed bag at times.

Conceptually, Harold is one of the wilder live-action movies for young demographics that we’ve had in recent years. Sure, IF recently reminded us of the imaginative powers of children and encouraged us to find our own, sometimes reality-warping abilities (even if it’s only in our perception alone). However, while that did give imagined beings some odd power to impact our world, they never achieve the nigh-omnipotence of Harold and his creative implement. That said, these concepts aren’t always fully or consistently explained and utilized in Harold. The film is a love letter to the power of imagination and effectively implies that when creators create worlds they really create worlds. Thus, Crockett’s creation of a character who is himself a world creator is, we can infer, the reason he can breach into our reality… but we have to guess to make the logic work. Of course, this provokes messy questions. Do all authors create worlds so thoroughly that sufficiently world-bending characters could enter our realm? Will our viewing of Deadpool & Wolverine see Deadpool slice the screen and steal our popcorn on his next fourth wall break? Will Calvin and Hobbes’ Calvin imagine a way off the page, making our snow into an icy army? Cleaner answers would be welcome, but it’s nice to have a younger-skewing film provoke entertaining and novel thoughts, even if it fails to provide satisfactory answers.

Related ‘The Imaginary’ Review: Netflix Does Its Best Studio Ghibli Impression This animated wonder of a movie explores a breathtaking world while remaining grounded in the emotions of our own.

Of course, these aren’t the only questions that Harold provokes and leaves unanswered. When Harold and friends enter our world, Harold enters as a grown human man in pajamas, but Moose and Porcupine are turned into humans in normal human clothes. Why? It’s not because weird animals can’t exist in our world–once here, the crayon creates both otherworldly oddities and photo-realistic animals alike, so the change isn’t necessary. Why is the worldly and cynical Terri so nonplussed about two odd men (who she claims not to trust) showing up in stalker-level quantities, especially in the orbit of her son, and causing problems in her life? She’s the Dana Scully of the bunch, never believing in magic reality-warping crayons, so she’d have no reason to put up with any of them outside the characters’ first scenes together. A tragic revelation at one point in the film threatens Harold’s powers of imagination, but it’s too simply resolved with the slightest of pep talks from another character. Again, given the set-up, why was it that easy? And why is it that, here, Harold’s creative abilities are threatened, but his own existence doesn’t seem to be?

As much as the film has its charms, it’s also muddled in its plotting and thematic development. It provokes interesting themesabout creation and imagination, about dealing with loss, and about growing up, but it doesn’t develop them consistently enough to make them shine. It utilizes both the naivety of Harold, Moose, and Porcupine in our world and the chaos of their world-altering magic for humor, but the latter is much more successful than the former. Certain performances make for memorable characters, but odd plotting choices sideline the characters or render them aimless or silly. A lot of imagination went into this celebration of imagination, but many of its best elements are weighed down by missteps.

‘Harold’ Has Real Promise, But Regularly Stops Short Of Reaching It
Image via Sony Pictures

As a film intended for younger audiences, Harold takes interestingly large conceptual swings, boasts solid character adaptations, and has some scenes and humorous moments that work. For its intended younger audience, the film’s visual creations and situational humor might work wonders, and Levi does capably portray a magical adult child unleashing havoc in our world. At the same time, a little honing throughout is much needed to tighten the film’s humor, themes, emotional core, and narrative plotting. It’s entertaining enough for its brief and breezy runtime, but for the thoughtful viewer, it will continuously provoke narrative and thematic questions of the kind that should be at least plausibly resolved by the time filming commences. It is a somewhat decent movie hampered by so many preventable oversights and missteps.

Review Harold and the Purple Crayon ‘Harold and the Purple Crayon’ boasts a solid cast and an entertaining, surprisingly meta plot, but many of its narrative turns and concepts leave too many questions.ProsIt boasts a strong cast, with Zachary Levi working well as a naive character adrift in our world.It’s an unexpectedly strong concept that provokes interesting questions and provides some solid moments of comedy.For younger viewers, the humor and creations might indeed work wonders. ConsSome plot elements fail to make adequate sense (even given the film’s magical crayon plot device).Many strong cast members are either underutilized in key moments or underdeveloped.Some of the film’s most interesting themes are muddled and haphazardly handled.

Harold and the Purple Crayon releases in theaters in the U.S. on August 1. Check below for showtimes near you.

Get Tickets