Sketch (2024)

Three children stand close together in a dense forest, looking ahead with serious and slightly fearful expressions. The child in the middle, with short brown hair and a denim jacket, is framed as the central focus. On the left is a child with curly hair wearing a peach plaid shirt, while on the right is a boy with dark hair in a navy shirt and backpack. Their faces are smudged with dirt and scratches, suggesting they’ve been through a difficult or adventurous situation. Sunlight filters through the trees behind them, casting a green glow over the scene.

There’s something oddly comforting about a film that knows exactly what it wants to be. Seth Worley’s Sketch doesn’t pretend to reinvent cinema, but it does something arguably more difficult: it tells a story about grief that doesn’t feel like homework. When eleven-year-old Amber’s sketchbook takes an accidental swim in a peculiar pond, her carefully drawn monsters decide they’ve had quite enough of being confined to paper, thank you very much.

What follows could have been standard creature-feature chaos. Instead, Worley crafts something more thoughtful. This is a film about a family coming apart at the seams following the death of a mother and wife, though it takes its time getting to that particular emotional core. The monsters are real enough to make you jump, but they’re also metaphors. Not subtle ones, mind you, but effective nonetheless.

Bianca Belle delivers what might be the year’s finest child performance as Amber. She captures that specific brand of pre-teen fury that stems from having too many feelings and not nearly enough vocabulary to express them. Tony Hale, meanwhile, sheds his usual comedic persona to play Taylor, a father so determined to keep his family functioning that he’s forgotten they might actually need to heal first. It’s a revelation, in my opinion, watching him navigate dramatic territory with such assurance.

The film stumbles somewhat during its middle stretch. Once the family dynamic gives way to monster hunting, things feel less urgent, more routine. Some supporting players exist mainly to explain plot points rather than illuminate character. But these are minor complaints.

D’Arcy Carden provides sharp support as the practical aunt who sees what others won’t acknowledge. The child performances throughout feel refreshingly unforced. No precocious wise-cracking here, just kids being kids under extraordinary circumstances.

Sketch suggests that maybe our real monsters aren’t the ones under the bed, but the emotions we refuse to face. A thought worth sketching out, one might say.

Share this:

Like this: