The Tooth Fairy Story Film Analysis: Animated Journey with a Sprinkling of Family-Friendly Preteen Love Story
Throughout this cartoon journey for preteens, the fairy community is dedicated to collecting teeth from sleeping children and leaving treasure beneath where they sleep. Board-riding youthful nonconformist fairy Van (brought to life by Booboo Stewart) shows little enthusiasm about devoting his life to collecting baby teeth—a sentiment that’s entirely reasonable. He is just slightly more interested in the financial workings behind it all: the fairies hand over the molars to mysterious goblins, who supply gold as payment. However, Van’s interest grows when he catches sight of a goblin (played by Larkin Bell), who turns out to be far from the ugly creature he had imagined.
A Forbidden Bond and Common Enemy
The stage is set for an exciting quest with a gentle touch of young love (even though it remains very much suitable for children). The fairy and goblin communities are estranged from each other, and there’s nothing like the excitement of secrecy to bring people together. The two species portrayed in the film are remarkably alike, yet both maintain biased views about the other. Fairies are supposed to be entitled types, prone to stealing whatever they fancy, while goblins are reportedly dim-witted, smelly, and backward, but are actually intelligent and technologically advanced.
Naturally, this scenario needs a common enemy to join forces against, and this is duly provided by some nasty spiders, with voices by Jon Lovitz and Fran Drescher. There’s no beating about the bush with these guys: they want to eat the goblins and fairies, and they serve as fairly bloodthirsty, if not especially competent, villains.
Ideal Viewers and Final Thoughts
You won’t find all that many children’s animations aimed at the viewer group that is beginning to have early romances, but aren’t yet mature enough for whatever teenagers are watching in lieu of popular teen sagas. If your child falls into this age group, this is unlikely to become their new favorite movie, but you could do worse.
The Tooth Fairy Story releases in movie theaters in Scotland starting October 10 and across the United Kingdom beginning October 24.
