A middling outing but with a memorable message- Cinema express

At a crucial juncture in the animated comedy, Leo, Adam Sandler’s eponymous character, a lizard, sings a song to a child advising her not to cry, calling it a sign of weakness, laziness, and stupidity. However, as the music fades, the kid pulls out a science book and reads about the benefits of crying. Later, Leo tells his friend Squirtle, a turtle (Bill Burr), “I didn’t know how to help her; so, I listened to her.” Leo juxtaposes his learnings with the sensibilities of lives (primarily children) around him and accepts the generational divide while helping them break free from social stigmas. While this is a seemingly triumphant moment for Leo, the character, the film doesn’t necessarily hit similar high notes in communicating these ideas to us.

Directors: Robert Marianetti, Robert Smigel,David Wachtenheim

Starring: Adam Sandler, Bill Burr, Cecily Strong, Jason Alexander

Streamer: Netflix

Leo and Squirtle are class pets of the fifth-grade students at an elementary school. Over the years, while observing the students from inside their glass cage, the pets have developed the ability to understand the children’s thoughts and feelings from their subtle gestures, conversations, and the way they interact with their peers. The status quo of Leo’s life is disrupted with the arrival of a new substitute teacher, and the realisation that he has just one year left to live.  

Despite being set in an elementary school, Leo isn’t placed in the world of crayons, pencils, and paper. Instead, it caters to the sensibilities of the new age, where 10-year-olds possess smartphones, computers, and drones. To teach responsibility to the students, the new substitute teacher, Mrs Malkin (Cecily Strong), assigns the students to take one of the classroom pets home. Leo is the first pet chosen, and he accompanies the students to their homes, where he listens to them and unwittingly becomes their favourite counsellor. He recommends confrontation instead of dismissing… a nuanced and upgraded version of the age-old adage ‘Live and let live.’

However, these nuances don’t really register as emotionally as they should–and at least part of this is on account of the writing. The big conflict of Leo’s days being numbered, for instance, doesn’t result in great drama. It’s why the writers seem forced to introduce a new conflict in the final act–and even that falls flat. 

Also, some of the writing feels repetitive–like all those scenes of Leo visiting each home and teaching the children a thing or two. But among the film’s weaknesses, the most glaring is the lack of quality in the songs, considering that the film is a musical. Where they should have been more profundity, the film never rises above modest aspirations. And that’s a lesson only a character like Leo might be capable of imparting.