Mark Reviews Movies: THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 20, 2020

There's a simple, honest sincerity to The One and Only Ivan, which begins as a story about eccentric talking animals, only to reveal one with a sense of deeper longing and admirable purpose. It's still a story about talking animals, but the film respects its bestial characters—and animals in general—enough to treat them as more than a joke, more than a gimmick, and more than excuse to show off some impressive visual effects.

There's a real heart to these characters and, indeed, to this story, about a silverback gorilla who has mostly known and can only remember life with and for humans. Opening text informs us that Mike White's screenplay (based on Katherine Applegate's book) is "inspired by" a true story, and the obvious joke is that of course it is, because animals cannot talk. The part of the story that comes from real life, though, puts forth a counter to that: Animals can and do communicate, if only we allow ourselves to see them for what they are and hear what they have to say.

The gorilla is named Ivan (voice of Sam Rockwell), and he currently lives in a pen at a small circus, located inside a tent in a shopping mall. His owner is Mack (Bryan Cranston), the owner and ringmaster of this single-ring circus, who has seen a decrease in business as of late.

The show hasn't changed in years. The chicken Henrietta (voice of Chaka Khan) pushes a button to swing a bat at incoming baseballs. Little rabbit Murphy (voice of Ron Funches) comes out driving a model fire truck, and the neurotic seal Frankie (voice of White) does some fancy tricks with a beach ball, worrying he'll mess up the entire time. Mack's beloved and spoiled poodle Snickers (voice of Helen Mirren) gets in on the act, too. There's even a full-grown elephant named Stella (voice of Angelina Jolie), who walks in and follows Mack's every command.

Ivan is the big draw, though—the headliner, the star, the animal with his name and picture adorning the billboard along the stretch of road outside the mall. He's revealed within a glass enclosure at the climax of the show and puts on an act of chest-thumping rage. Ivan cannot figure out why humans want to see this. The wise Stella points out that humans have their expectations, wanting to see things, especially animals, in only one way. That's good enough for Ivan for now. He has the show, Mack, and his friends, including a stray dog named Bob (voice of Danny DeVito) who curls up on the gorilla's big belly every night.

Much of the early material plays out exactly as we anticipate. The animals are cute, weird, and jokey, brought to life as digital creations of various levels of verisimilitude (Some of the side players look like effects, but the main ones, such as Ivan and Stella and even the pooches, are quite convincing).

At first, the story is fully planted in the drama of the circus, particularly the possibility it may have to close for financial reasons and the need to bring in some new talent. Mack frets about failure and schemes for success. There's even a kind girl named Julia (Ariana Greenblatt), the daughter of stage manager George (Ramon Rodriguez), who talks to the animals with real affection, while worrying about her sick mother at home. She likes to draw, and Julia passes some old crayons and paper to Ivan, hoping he'll express himself artistically, too.

All of that falls to the side, though, when Mack buys a new attraction: a baby elephant named Ruby (voice of Brooklynn Prince). The initial conflict is that Ivan starts to feel overlooked and underappreciated, but Stella's sudden illness puts the entire existence of these circus animals into a different perspective. White's screenplay is admirably tricky in this way—setting up one lesson, about allowing oneself to give up the spotlight for someone else, but then forcing us to question the presence of the spotlight in these animals' lives in the first place.

Even more important is how White and director Thea Sharrock shift the narrative focus from a story about funny animals in the backdrop of a circus to a tale that's entirely about the animals, with the humans in the background. It becomes Ivan's story in a way that's rather startling, if only because the filmmakers haven't stopped at the work put into making the digital gorilla look authentic. Sharrock and White, with a lot of help from Rockwell's thoughtful vocal performance, have given us an actual character—with an inner life filled with repressed trauma, with concern for the little elephant in his care, with a conflicted sense of loyalty to Mack, and with the desire to have a life for himself and to provide lives for his fellow circus performers more suited to the wild, free animals they actually are.

This easily could be sappy and/or manipulative, and indeed, if the filmmakers had followed the easier path of just seeing these animals as joke machines or digital props, it easily could have been (On the other hand, one does wonder how this story might have played without any gimmickry—with the animals as animals and with the existence of Ivan's emotions and thoughts as a mystery slowly revealed). The One and Only Ivan, though, actually cares about Ivan as a character, and that makes all the difference.

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