Imagination is the most powerful currency known to man. Perhaps an overly hackneyed sentiment that invalidates more concrete forms of wealth, but it is still very motivating and the premise on which many creative individuals choose to base their lives. One of the great examples of this concept in practice comes in the form of Crockett Johnson’s timeless classic, Harold and the Purple Crayon, a book that has enthralled young readers since its publication over half a century ago, when children were first introduced to the titular protagonist, who wielded the most effective instrument imaginable, being able to create anything through the power of simply imagining it. The idea of adapting this book into a film has existed for decades, and it has finally come to fruition – but unlike other examples such as James and the Giant Peach and Where the Wild Things Are, which managed to mostly keep the spirit of the original works, this adaptation proves to be very close to an absolute disaster. Directed by Carlos Saldanha, who has made quite a few well-liked family films over the years, but who had yet to work in live-action, Harold and the Purple Crayon almost entirely invalidates the beautiful intricacy of Johnson’s prose, rendering it as nothing more than fodder for a near-vulgar attempt at infantile humour and wacky scenarios in which the writer’s lovely work is barely even recognizable. Had it not borne the title and centred on the search for the author himself, we may not have even realized that it was based on his work, with nearly every choice that the director makes, from the visual aesthetic to the narrative and everything in between, being unnecessarily dense and far too uneven to be even vaguely interesting, which leads to a truly frustrating, unlikable film that is as banal as it is shrill, both of which it has in abundance.

Unlike many failed book-to-film adaptations, whereby we can appreciate the ambition that it has at the outset and then start to find it falling apart as it goes along, Harold and the Purple Crayon makes it clear from the very beginning where its weaknesses lie, which makes it very easy to determine where it fails. After starting with a genuinely delightful opening, where Johnson’s stunning drawings are brought to life (and which could have probably made for a wonderful film all on its own had they realized this approach could have made for a terrific film), the film immediately loses momentum the moment it steps out of this fantasy world and into the real one, which is the first major mistake. The appeal of Johnson’s book is that nothing is ever explained – it is a tale plucked from the imagination of a child, written by a truly gifted storyteller who doesn’t ever feel impelled to offer clarity to what is simply just a charming, appealing narrative all about the value of imagination. Saldanha seems to overlook this fundamental principle, seeing Harold and the Purple Crayon as merely an opportunity to explore the concept of moving between reality and a fictional world, not realizing that there is a lot more nuance than simply oscillating between the two, and that simply stepping between one and another, as appealing as it may sound, doesn’t lend itself to much narrative depth when the entire project seems to lack any sense of real cohesion, right down to the most fundamental concepts, which the director seems to overlook in their entirety, and which ultimately creates a film that has good ideas, but lacks the self-awareness to do anything even vaguely interesting with its material, an unfortunate and all too obvious occurrence when it comes to these cheaply-made family films that are not done with any sense of dedication to their material.

Unfortunately, Harold and the Purple Crayon has a central performance as puzzling and bewildering as the story itself, coming in the form of Zachary Levi, who is an actor who has proven to be earnest to the point where it has become something of a liability. What started as likeability has been reconfigured into an uncomfortable intensity that comes across as someone trying desperately to be both adored and taken seriously as an actor, neither one being helped by this film in any way. Levi is indeed someone who has a certain degree of charisma (or else he would not have gotten to this point in his career), but he’s not a strong enough actor to hold an entire film on his shoulders, especially not one that requires someone who can convincingly sell the nuances of such a story. He’s instead someone who looks like a movie star, but is not gifted enough to get the roles that we’d expect, and instead has to settle for these mid-level genre films that try to convey the sense that he is some deeply talented, extremely captivating actor when in reality he is serviceable at the best of times. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for his co-stars, which include two truly disconcerting performances on the part of Lil Rel Howery and Tanya Reynolds, who seem to be cast explicitly for their facial expressions and ability to play these over-the-top comedic creations. The fact that the film took the characters of Moose and Porcupine and made them human points to the clear lack of effort since there was far more work done to try and explain why they transformed into entirely different species while entering into the real world than there would have been employing special effects to bring the characters to life through computer-generated imagery. The performances in Harold and the Purple Crayon are as lacklustre as the storyline, which is exceptionally weak and lacking in just about every area that matters.

More than anything else, the area in which Harold and the Purple Crayon fails the most is in the fact that it believes that spectacle is more important than substance, a misguided principle that has been the root of many films’ downfall and something that we find this film perfectly defines, at least in terms of how it seems promising in theory but falls apart from the very start. Not only is the story essentially non-existent, with the narrative itself being paper-thin and cliched beyond comparison, but it also loses the spirit of the original book. The film carefully markets itself as a sequel to Johnson’s book, with the assumption being that his original story was too short to make for a compelling feature film – this is not a strong enough excuse, since we’ve seen masterful works produced from even more paltry sources, and working from a short picture book was not grounds to create an entirely new story that causes the original work to lose most of its meaning. Not only this, the message at the heart of the film is too vague to even register – the constant refrain of the importance of imagination should be the foundation of the narrative, not the big twist, and when your entire plot centres on the search for the disembodied voice that narrates your life that inexplicably disappears one day (which is never explained within the context of the film – if the character was supposed to die at the same time as Crockett Johnson, it makes very little sense to set this film in the present day, when he passed away nearly half a century ago), and it ends with simply forcing your opponent into a fantasy world of your construction, it is clear that nothing valuable was being done here, and the overall product is truly lacklustre and far from appealing in any conceivable way. It’s a weak film with a premise that matches the amount of effort it is willing to put into its production, which is minimal based on nearly every aspect of the film. Saldanha is not a director who necessarily earns the benefit of the doubt, and this film does not come across as being particularly resonant in any real way.

Harold and the Purple Crayon is a film that leaves us wondering what could have been had a director who had proven to be committed to the art of capturing imagination been allowed to tell such a story – there are so many unique and daring ways in which this story could have been told, and he, unfortunately, ended up with the one that is perhaps the least convincing and entertaining. There are some charming sight gags scattered throughout, and the film has good intentions, but none of these elements are even vaguely strong enough to sustain the film or keep it from being anything other than a bundle of missed opportunities. The performances are weak, the writing is beyond lacklustre and the direction is meagre at the best of times – for a film that promoted itself as a storybook come to life, it is surprisingly flat and lifeless, and even the moments where it is supposed to be at its most imaginative come across as false and uninspired, making it very clear that Saldanha was the wrong person to helm the film, and that it should have instead gone to someone with slightly more experience with these kinds of films. A film like Harold and the Purple Crayon should not be this disappointing – it should inspire audiences to look inward and find the joy that comes with embracing their imagination, but when we are instead given such a weak, half-hearted work, it is difficult to feel anything other than total apathy for this film and everything it represents, especially in how it botches a cherished classic, an unforgivable and cardinal sin as far as literary adaptations go, and something that will linger heavily next time someone attempts to leap adapting one of these novels. We can only hope that going forward, whatever comes next will be less mangled than this misguided and dull film.