Emily (Tipper Seifert-Cleveland) is a good kid. She plays basketball, gets high grades, is responsible, and eats all her vegetables. Her mom is too busy at work to have much time for her though, and seems to be hiding a secret in the library, stories and drawing inspired by her now lost husband, Emily’s father. Emily steals her way into the room and discovers a book called Faunutland that opens up to a magical world of fairies and witches and mystical creatures that at first seems like a wonderland of escape. However, there is a menace underfoot, and it will take Emily’s childlike innocence and warm heart to save it all.
Directed by Marcus Ovnell, Emily and the Magical Journey (originally Faunutland and the Lost Magic) is a Swedish-made English language children’s fantasy film with some impressive production and visual effects wrapped around a fairly standard plot. Little Emily only knows her father in pictures and wants to heal her mother’s broken heart, using her imagination to enter the colorful realm of Nightinglar (Jenny Lampa), a flightless woman-sized fairy and her friend Belorac, an hairy, lumbering, horned beast that is a gentle as a baby lamb. They have heard tales of “human children” and how they are bestowed with the ability to use their imaginations to be free. They believe it is Emily that can save them from certain doom and the fear adults plant in their heads (here represented by an evil witch in a dark castle).
It all sounds familiar of course, relying on a number of standards in the genre to keep it clipping along, with those having been on weaned films like The NeverEnding Story and Pan’s Labyrinth perhaps most sensing they’ve been here before. Ovnell tones his production down though, steering far clear of the more modern tendency to lean on heavier themes and violence. He shares screenwriting duties with Lampa, and the two clearly want to make something accessible to younger audiences, working hard to reach down to an elementary level and kindle some happy magic.
I’m certainly not the audience for this and so my imagination doesn’t quite have the capacity for what’s intended, but it’s easy to see the appeal some younger eyes might find in the elaborate attention to detail. Most everything is made with practical effects, with Belorac a well-designed and believable companion along with numerous other fantastical wonders Emily encounters. Lampa is good fun prancing about in her floppy autumn-colored hair, while Seifert-Cleveland does her best to rise to the occasion.
The limited budget keeps a bit of this from reaching its potential but the message is firm and easy to follow, making this an easy pick for family movie night. It’s a very good looking film with a delightfully rousing score from Joe Kraemer that never gets too scary or demanding of its young viewers. Recommended.