Moon Garden Review

Top 10 Film of 2023

Moon Garden review.

A child’s visually stunning journey through a nightmare that is all too familiar. Moon Garden will steal headlines for its visual style and gorgeous stop-motion animation. There is something even more powerful at its core.

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Moon Garden

Directed by Ryan Stevens Harris

Written by Ryan Stevens Harris

Starring Augie Duke, Brionne Davis, Haven Lee Harris, Maria Olsen, Timothy Lee DePriest, Phillip E. Walker and Morgana Ignis

Moon Garden Review

Moon Garden sets a somber tone early.  It’s an important factor in its success.  No matter how wonderous or fantastical the journey that comprises Moon Garden becomes…the reality of the world never leaves you.  As we watch a child navigate a dreamscape that she can’t fully comprehend…we’re burdened by understanding it all too well.  While Moon Garden will be an emotional experience for everyone…anyone who grew up like its main character will find it incredibly moving and profound.

Following an accident, Emma (Haven Lee Harris) falls into a coma.  She finds herself trapped in a nightmarish dreamworld that preys upon her fears and memories.  As her mother (Augie Duke) sings to her from her bedside the sound penetrates the nightmare…beckoning her home.

Most of Moon Garden takes place in a dream world full of fantasy and metaphorical nightmares.  It begins with a realistic one.  Emma is woken by her mother so they can silently slip out in the night.  She doesn’t understand what’s happening or where her father (Brionne Davis) is.  We do.  When her father catches them in the garage and rips the car keys from the vehicle…we know exactly what’s happening.  Soon after, Emma hears her parents screaming at each other and runs into their bedroom begging them to stop.  As she turns to run away, she falls down the stairs.  The sounds of sirens and monitors follow.  When she wakes again…her time in the dream world begins.

Unfortunately, the nightmare started long before the coma.  When I was a child, I was woken up on more than one occasion to either sneak or run out of the house with my mother.  Many people have these memories.  Moon Garden is going to bring them all back.  Back to experiencing fear that you can’t fully understand with the eyes of someone who now can.  Moon Garden does an excellent job evoking the confusion, emotion and feelings that accompany living in a breaking home.  It uses memories of times both better and worse to fill out the narrative…and to propel the key to its journey.  The odyssey of a child who wants to return to a happy home.

There is a heavy emotional weight in Moon Garden’s story.  As it’s shown through the eyes of a child…it’s often portrayed with a sense of fantasy and wonder.  The dream world Emma must traverse is full of magic…both light and dark.  Lifeforms both helpful and scary.  Such is life.  Emma’s journey isn’t just to return to the waking world…it’s also towards the self-discovery of inner strength and light.  Moon Garden is more about the magic of childhood being poisoned by the fears of it than in presenting a completely dark version of its story.  Emma sees, is, the light in the darkness.  As viewers, we are burdened by a melancholy that soaks into the entire experience.

And what an experience it is.  Moon Garden is a jaw dropping spectacle of creativity.  The practical effects, world design and stop-motion animation combine to create a world rich in visual splendor.  You can’t take your eyes off it.  Whether it be the use of light in the dark or Emma’s stuffed animal transforming before your eyes…Moon Garden never runs out of creative ways to show you something fantastic

Emma is pursued through the world by Teeth (Morgana Ignis), a monster that feeds off her tears.  It’s a wonderful horror creation.  The perfect nightmare antagonist unleashed into a world of terrifying imagination.  And, for the adult viewer, a relatable one.  Teeth isn’t the true villain of the story, of course.  We know from the opening where Emma’s fears come from…Teeth is merely a representation of them.  Moon Garden gives us flashbacks inside Emma’s journey.  Flashbacks to happier times…but also insight into how she perceives her parents.  At times cold and distant…at times loving and happy.  We see her mother battle depression and her father’s unhappiness.  No matter how surreal and fantastic the world around Emma becomes…it’s always firmly tethered to a reality that awaits Emma if she wakes up.

Moon Garden is a movie you can sit back and enjoy for its visuals and emotional thread.  There’s a deeper, sadder, story here if you want that too.  For some, it will be unavoidable.  A child’s view of adult problems…the fear of not understanding.  The power inside yourself and the strength to overcome those fears, and realities, wrapped into one of the most creative packages in recent memory.  Moon Garden is beautiful on the surface…and ugly underneath.  Such is life.

Scare Value

Moon Garden puts a child into a nightmare they don’t fully understand. What makes it so effective is that adult viewers do. Specifically, anyone who was raised in a difficult household. The visual effects, led by gorgeous stop-motion animation, create a striking world. Emma’s journey is full of emotion and wide-eyed wonder. No matter how surreal the world around Emma becomes her story remains tethered to reality in unique and creative ways. One of the year’s best, and most impactful, films.

4.5/5

Moon Garden Trailer

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