The Tooth Fairy Story Film Analysis: Animated Adventure with a Touch of Family-Friendly Preteen Romance
In this cartoon adventure aimed at tweens, the world of fairies is dedicated to collecting baby teeth of slumbering youngsters and leaving treasure beneath where they sleep. Board-riding youthful nonconformist fairy Van (brought to life by Booboo Stewart) is less than thrilled about devoting his life to gathering baby teeth—a sentiment that’s entirely reasonable. He is just a bit more interested in the financial workings behind it all: the fairies hand over the molars to unseen goblins, who supply gold as payment. But Van’s curiosity is piqued when he spots a goblin (voiced by Larkin Bell), who turns out to be far from the ugly gnome he expected.
A Forbidden Connection and Shared Threat
Everything is prepared for an exciting quest with a gentle touch of teen romance (even though it remains very much suitable for younger kids). The goblin and fairy communities are estranged from each other, and nothing fuels the excitement of secrecy to bring people as one. The two species portrayed in the film are remarkably alike, yet each holds prejudiced beliefs about the other. Fairies are supposed to be entitled types, given to taking whatever they fancy, while goblins are allegedly stupid, smelly, and backward, but are in fact intelligent and advanced in technology.
Naturally, such a setup needs a common enemy to unite against, and this is duly provided in the form of some nasty spiders, with voices by Jon Lovitz and Fran Drescher. They make no secret about their intentions: they want to eat the goblins and fairies, and they make for quite savage, if not particularly skilled, villains.
Ideal Viewers and Final Thoughts
You won’t find very many animated films targeting the kind of audience that is starting to experience first crushes, but are not mature enough for the content teenagers are watching instead of Twilight. Should your youngster falls into this age group, this is unlikely to be their next all-time fave, but you could do worse.
The Tooth Fairy Story arrives in movie theaters in Scotland starting October 10 and across the United Kingdom from 24 October.
