Bringing Back Family Films: The Legend of Ochi

It must be said—The Legend of Ochi is like a Soviet version of Spielberg’s E.T. replicated through the hypnotic lens of '80s fantasy cinema. The premise, while narratively derivative, is nevertheless charming and fantastical. Ochi follows a young, rebellious girl named Yuri (Helena Zengel) who lives on the remote and misty isle of Carpathia with her militant father and his orphaned ward. The humans in this island are locked in a bloody conflict with ape-like creatures known as the Ochi. But when an infant Ochi is wounded and left behind, Yuri sets off on a panoramic journey to return the creature to its family—learning along the way that the Ochi are not what they’ve been made out to be. Although the film is a familiar child’s tale of compassion, coming-of-age, and our deepening relationship with nature, Ochi becomes more than just another morality tale.

Ochi is the directorial debut of Isaiah Saxon and stars Zengel alongside Willem Dafoe, Emily Watson, and Finn Wolfhard. It marks A24’s second family film after Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. Screenings at Alamo Drafthouse offered audiences a chance to hear Saxon briefly discuss the film’s beautiful use of puppetry and inform children they are smarter than their parents. Both parents and children find this amusing.

Interestingly, Ochi shines with its cinematography, especially when the focus is on the fictional island of Carpathia. The island is rendered as a haunting, otherworldly landscape, and at times it feels strange and untamed, yet grounded enough to feel real. It’s not just pretty pictures for the sake of fantasy; it sets the tone, pulls you in, and never lets go. This is one of the film’s strongest assets.

Even more impressive is the puppetry, which is easily the film’s most striking feature. It brings the Ochi to life with an artistic sincerity that CGI often struggles to replicate. The mysterious feel of the creatures draws children into the narrative without needing to explain what’s real and what’s not. The physicality of the puppets gives the film emotional weight, inviting the audience to believe in this world without question. It’s hard not to want more. The more you watch, the more you want more lore, more creatures, more Carpathia.

And yet, this is where the film begins to stumble. Despite its visual inventiveness (which is not necessarily new but very much welcome), the performances fall flat. The characters often lack the depth needed to support the story's emotional core. Character motivations, such as Dafoe’s and Watson’s, are poorly hinted at rather than developed, leaving viewers with vague exposition and anticlimactic reveals (not that there are many). Others like Wolfhard’s Petro feel so devoid of characterization, he could easily be abandoned and no one would remember his existence. Audiences want to care more, and that is the point of the film, but Ochi doesn’t always give you enough to hold onto.

Despite these dull shortcomings, The Legend of Ochi is a remarkable and beautiful debut. It is not only a visual experience that hearkens back to a different era of family storytelling, but one where the craft mattered as much as the content. To that end, films like Ochi should return to the silver screen, given that they will one day provide adults with a sense of nostalgia when rewatching 10 or 20 years later. All that matters is how it presents itself and reminds children that there still is movie magic. It just takes a little bit of imagination to see it.

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