'Orion and the Dark' review: Fear not, this animated adventure is terrific

WHAT IT'S ABOUT “Orion and the Dark” finds the brilliant screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, the man behind everything from “Being John Malkovich” to “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” making another foray into animation after his "Anomalisa."

Kaufman's adaptation of the children's book by Emma Yarlett, which also marks the feature directorial debut of animation veteran Sean Charmatz, tells the story of a boy named Orion (Jacob Tremblay), who is afraid of just about everything.

That's falling off skyscrapers, demonic clowns, social situations … you name it, Orion is worried about it.

High atop the list of fears? The darkness itself, which makes it extra scary when it materializes in the form of a friendly monster called Dark (Paul Walter Hauser). Orion and Dark go on a journey together, along with other manifestations of nighttime sensations: Sleep (Natasia Demetriou), Insomnia (Nat Faxon), Sweet Dreams (Angela Bassett), Unexplained Noises (Golda Rosheuvel) and Quiet (Aparna Nancherla).

MY SAY At first glance, Kaufman seems like an odd fit for a movie in this space, given his propensity for stories that skew toward the cerebral and the surreal.

But “Orion and the Dark,” despite initial appearances, has as much of a connection to the rest of Kaufman's oeuvre as it does to your everyday animated adventure. The story might sound like it's lifted straight out of, say, “Elemental,” but there are revelations throughout that show something deeper and more complicated is at play.

Orion faces his fears by traveling with the beings across a vividly imagined nighttime landscape, learning that even the most terrifying sensations can be understood as just a part of the rich tapestry of existence.

The aesthetic might be described as planetarium chic, with bursting neon colors and vast starscapes. Some would even call it trippy. In one of the better recent gambits in, well, anything, Werner Herzog shows up as a narrator to pontificate on the cosmos.

Even with its Pixar-like touches, this world feels different enough to retain interest and avoid cheap knockoff territory.

The reason the picture achieves something greater comes from what's revealed to be its framing device: an older Orion (Colin Hanks) is telling this story to his daughter to help her face her own fears.

So the movie becomes, ultimately, a story about the stories we tell ourselves. It's a cousin, in its own fashion, to a film like Kaufman's "Adaptation," which was ultimately a movie about its own making.

Here, instead of looking inward, the screenwriter looks above and beyond and across time. This "Orion and the Dark" shows how an active imagination might make things seem scarier than they should, but that it can also make the world feel smaller and friendlier, especially when there's a loved one to share it with.

BOTTOM LINE This is a smart movie that addresses real and universal childhood fears in an original way.