Over Thanksgiving break, I was bombarded with ads for this very random-seeming new movie written by and starring Adam Sandler. It’s an animated kids movie called “Leo” where Adam Sandler plays a talking class lizard, Leo. Whatever they did with those ads, it worked on me, because mere hours later I was recommending to my mom that we watch “Leo” while we digested Thanksgiving dinner.
Maybe my life is just boring, but I laughed like I had not laughed in a long time while watching this movie. It was written by Adam Sandler, Robert Smigel, and Paul Sado, who are some of the minds behind “Saturday Night Live” and “Breaking Bad.” And they did not hold back any of their collective genius, even though this is technically a kids movie. Also, it’s a musical? That was kind of weird and unexpected, but it’s not a large takeaway from the movie (except that any of the songs that Adam Sandler sang in his performance as Leo reminded me deeply of “The Chanukah Song”.
What I did take away is that it’s awesome to watch a kids movie with jokes designed also for adults as an adult. The very first scene depicts a group of students entering their final year of elementary school (fifth grade), and as they walk into the building a group of kindergarteners arrives. While the fifth graders look like regular, cartoon children, the kindergarteners have completely spherical heads with eyes on the sides of their heads like fish. They barely have bodies. As a group, they move like a group of computer-generated circles bouncing rapidly around a screen. If you have ever been in an elementary school, I think you would find this hilarious. This is exactly what kindergarteners are like!
There were so many things that were like this. The movie was funny because it was so real, and I think what made it real was the writers’ real experiences with children this age. Most of the younger children of the writers and directors actually voice acted for some of the children in this movie, which was a great touch. The movie also started out with some very adult realities — in one of the first scenes, the pregnant fifth grade teacher uncontrollably devours an entire student’s lunch and then throws up in front of the class. Then, during the announcement that she will be going on maternity leave, a comment from a parent starts Leo thinking about how old he is. He soon spirals into a crisis about his impending death and how he’s wasted his life in captivity in this classroom. All of this is kind of heavy and maybe even a little graphic for kids, but it was all written in a way that made it funny and understandable for anyone.
The new substitute teacher assigned to the fifth grade class mandates that each student take Leo (or his best friend, Squirtle, who’s also an awesome character) home for a weekend during the year. Each time a student takes Leo, they discover that not only can he talk, but he gives great advice. Leo uses his many years of experience watching students grow and develop throughout the fifth grade to give some perspective to kids struggling with social things, puberty, parental and familial relationships, self-doubt and self-image, and so much more. Obviously the movie is idealistic in the sense that not every fifth grader would be able to take advice from someone (let alone a lizard) and have it immediately fix their lives, but it is kind of beautiful to watch it work over and over again for an entire class of kids. Each time a student takes Leo, they come back raving about how awesome he is, and soon the entire class loves him. They leave their cell phones in his enclosure so that they can call him at night and talk to him. It’s really lovely.
I’ll leave my spoilers of the story at that, but suffice it to say I really loved this movie. I thought it was clever in so many ways and gritty enough to be a real adult comedy. I always say that I don’t like watching really dramatic TV or movies — I have enough stress with school as it is. “Leo” was exactly what I needed during the non-break that is Thanksgiving break, and I highly recommend giving it a watch if you’re not too embarrassed to be caught laughing at a cartoon lizard voiced by Adam Sandler.
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