SKETCH is set in present-day America. The story is about the Wyatt family who live in a small town. It focusses on siblings Amber (Bianca Belle) and Jack (Kue Lawrence). She is ten-years-old and he is twelve. They are being raised by their widower father Taylor (Tony Hale). The family is living with the aftermath of losing their wife and mother. Her death has most clearly affected Amber, who was once a carefree kid with a talent for art. Now she keeps to herself and spends hour upon hour drawing in notebooks. When the contents of her art become known to her school, her father is called in and alerted to the dark subject matter. The pages of her notebook are filled with monsters who are chasing and attacking people. Some of these people include a boy called Bowman (Kalon Cox) who bullies Amber on the school bus.
Amber is angry at the world, yet the school’s psychologist, Miss Thompson (Randa Newman) sees a more positive side to these drawing; at least Amber is not keeping the anger locked up inside herself. Miss Thompson recommends that Amber continues to express her negative feelings in this way, because it is a safe way to deal with them. This fits precisely with what Amber wants. She gets a new notebook and issues a warning to all to never look at the drawings within.
Meanwhile, Jack discovers there is something unusual about a nearby pond. It seems to have powers that affects inanimate objects. He goes about testing what happens when certain items are submerged in the water. As he discovers the extent of the pond’s power, he decides that he needs to be more ambitious in choosing the items he is going to put under the water.
The children’s father Taylor is largely unaware of their activities. He is concentrating on selling their house. His sister Liz (D’Arcy Carden) is the real estate agent and she is constantly pushing her brother to do his best to keep the family home tidy as she shows prospective buyers the inside of the property. He does a terrible job maintaining the inside of the house and in fact, he is barely holding himself together as he remembers how his life used to be when his wife Ally (Allie McCulloch) was alive.
Jack and Amber argue continually. He believes he is trying to help her; she finds both him and his father intrusive and she prefers to be left alone. The children’s fights escalate and things come to a head one night when their feud breaks out at the edge of the mysterious pond.
SKETCH is from filmmaker Seth Worley who has created short films and commercials before making this, his debut feature. He pulls triple duty here as writer, editor, and director of the movie. The story is aimed at an audience of ten-years plus and combines great effects, drama, and light horror elements. The bulk of the action is concentrated on the characters of Amber, Jack, and Bowman, so there is something of the feel of child-centred, Spielberg directed movies like ET (1982) or Spielberg-inspired work like STRANGER THINGS (2016 -). Or to bring in further references, there are reminders of human versus creepy-crawly flicks like ARACHNOPHOBIA (1990) and TREMORS (1990).
The mayhem that the kids must deal with is well-staged. There is a real feeling of threat when appropriate and several brilliantly-handled scenes when the scares are nicely-balanced with comedy. There are even some laugh-out loud special-effect grace notes involving some of the “spiders.”
Performances by the trio of children are extremely good. We believe in them and their world from the get-go. Tony Hale as father Taylor will be a welcome sight to those who have enjoyed his work in the comedies ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT (2003-2019) and VEEP (2012-2019). Here, he is less comedic and does a fine job portraying a man with a deep love for his children, who is also barely holding himself together. Hale also has a producing credit on the film. D’Arcy Carden as sister Liz is well known from THE GOOD PLACE (2016-2020) and A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN (2022). She is somewhat underused here. Her character’s relationship with her grieving brother is a subtle parallel with Amber and Jack’s sibling relationship.
The story telling occasionally misses a stitch, but it is mostly solidly handled. This is a funny and exciting movie that has plenty of thrills. And it never loses sight of the Wyatts and their inner struggle as they search to put their lives back together after the centre of their family is gone.
The movie is perfectly paced for its 92 minutes and is absolutely worth a watch. (8/10)
