Mark Reviews Movies: FLORA & ULYSSES

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Review by Mark Dujsik | February 18, 2021

"Thanks for keeping it weird," Flora (Matilda Lawler) tells her friend, who suffers from a temporary case of "hysterical" blindness but quite wrongly believes his other senses to be greatly heightened ("I won't see you tomorrow, but I will hear and smell you," is the line that prompts the not-at-all sarcastic gratitude from the girl). Flora, by the way, is convinced that her pet squirrel is a superhero, having gained supernatural powers after being sucked into a robotic vacuum cleaner and resurrected from death.

Yes, Flora & Ulysses is a weird film. Yes, it knows, accepts, and embraces that fact, and yes, we, too, should be grateful for all of these qualities. The film has a kind and gentle heart, too, which comes as a bit of a surprise, considering how strange its premise, characters, and sense of humor are.

Indeed, Flora does rescue a little, helpless squirrel, minding its own business until that terror of an out-of-control automatic vacuum registers the little animal as a piece of trash. The girl revives the critter with CPR ("Was it clean?" asks one of her parents, and the mostly honest Flora can't lie but is happy to detail what the squirrel's mouth tasted like) and takes it in as a pet, hidden from her romance-novelist mother Phyllis (Alyson Hannigan), who tries to draw inspiration for her recent writer's block from an award she won—in the shape of a doomed romantic couple aboard a sinking ship.

The mother's issues stem from the fact that she and her husband, Flora's father, George (Ben Schwartz) have separated. It has hit Flora, too, who once imagined the world filled with the hope and optimism of the superheroes over which she and father bonded. George wrote and drew comic books, an interlude of comic-style back story informs us, but he couldn't sell his work to a publisher. The father, perceiving himself as a failure, left home and took a job at an office supply store, where he's miserable but at least earning a paycheck.

Flora, meanwhile, has become an avowed "cynic," banishing the cheery, imaginative ways of her still-ongoing childhood. The screenplay by Brad Copeland, adapted from Kate DiCamillo's illustrated children's novel, is clever and knowing about this character, who's smart but not precocious, ironic without becoming annoying, and really just a happy, if troubled, kid at heart, despite all her protestations to the contrary. Lawler gets and conveys all of this in a winning performance.

One doesn't quite know what to expect for a plot for this tale, which follows Flora, her mother, her father, and, obviously, the little rodent, which Flora names "Ulysses" (after the brand of vacuum that might have imbued it with super-squirrel powers), with almost equal focus. Flora gains a glimmer of hope from the squirrel's presence, its ability to write poetry (mostly ending with a line about how hungry it is), and flashes that it might have other, less artistic powers. Phyllis is at a crossroads in her career, with an anticipated and unfinished book standing between her and professional catastrophe. George has given up on his dream and believes that means he has to give up on family, lest he disappoint them even more.

Of course, there's also the matter of Ulysses, an ordinary squirrel transformed into something extraordinary (The visual effects creating the animal are far from extraordinary, but they do give the little guy a lot of cutesy personality). Flora, who knows all about comic books and the most common traditions of the medium's narrative, knows she's witnessing a superhero's origin story.

It's up to her to convince those closest to her—as well as her new friend William (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth), who could be cured of his visual impairment if only he stopped being so anxious, which only takes an introduction to know how unlikely that is—that Ulysses has superpowers. The squirrel also has to find its purpose—the reason for which it became empowered and needs to become a hero.

If the narrative feels a bit random and the plot seems almost like a second or third thought, that's mainly because Copeland and director Lena Khan care more about the material's comedic potential and later—as strange as it may sound, given the story's inherent oddity—these characters, as eccentric as they may be. The former concern involves a lot of pratfalls, some comic destruction, a few supporting characters who are even weirder than the central ones, and a feral cat that stalks residents and visitors outside George's apartment complex.

While Flora and a quickly convinced George (who sees the squirrel fly in a donut shop, trying to escape the employees and get a sweet treat) try to find Ulysses' purpose, the family and squirrel are pursued by a determined animal control officer (played by Danny Pudi). The film even gives him a tragic story for his obsession, as a newspaper headline explains how he's a disgraced former park ranger, whose career fell after he couldn't stop a few rabid squirrels.

The throwaway jokes here are as amusing as the bigger setpieces, which are grounded by Khan's winking, smirking tone of acknowledging and accepting how silly this story is. Flora & Ulysses cares about tone and comedic intention, which comes as a pleasant surprise, and it also cares about these characters, their problems, and how a super-powered squirrel can help them re-discover the meaning and purpose of family, which comes as a sweet bonus.

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