‘Over the Moon’ Review: Glen Keane’s Delectable Netflix Debut Waxes as it Goes Along

When did American kids movies become so preoccupied with death? When did being a beloved relative in a colorful animated children’s adventure become as much of a death sentence as being a teenager in a “Final Destination” film? Loss and the lessons that come with it are somewhat foundational to a genre that’s still associated with the likes of “Bambi” and — more recently — “The Lion King,” but over the last few years it’s started to feel as if feature-length cartoons have embraced their function as surrogate grieving counselors for young people who need a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.
This is not a complaint: As someone raised on the grief-adjacent “My Neighbor Totoro” (and comforted much later in life by the wisdom and beauty of a film like “Kubo and the Two Strings”), I know that steering children through their worst sadness is one of the most valuable things that a movie can do. It’s just to say that Netflix’s “Over the Moon” — the story of a modern Chinese girl who thinks that proving the existence of the moon goddess Chang’e will convince her widower dad not to re-marry and “forget” her mother — might have seemed more urgent if it hadn’t come on the heels of “Kubo,” “Coco,” “Onward,” or even “Wonder Park.” If there were more of an itch for this movie to scratch, as opposed to a red patch of skin that’s already been scraped raw.
But if “Over the Moon” launches into orbit on the strength of its specificity, much of the film is frustratingly generic for a fable so rooted in a particular sense of place, the unique traditions that come with it, and the way they help a certain little girl learn to appreciate the enduring light of her late mother’s love. The result is a taste of Chinese folklore that’s almost Disneyfied beyond recognition — a movie that gets a bit lost in space between telling a story about one kid, and telling a story that could resonate with them all.
The feature directorial debut of animation legend Glen Keane (whose character designs have defined everything from “The Rescuers” to “Tangled”), “Over the Moon” essentially builds an elaborate framing device around the ancient myth behind China’s Mid-Autumn Festival — an origin story that young people in that part of the world know by heart. Fei Fei (voiced by plucky newcomer Cathy Ang) is a bright girl who’s grown up as the only child of two loving parents who run a food stall along the banks of a historic water town south of the Yangtze River. Her childhood was as sweet as the mooncakes her mother (Ruthie Ann Miles) baked every day, and as full of wonder as the stories her father told her each night (John Cho has the kind of piercingly tender dad voice that makes you want to be a better parent).