The Tooth Fairy Story Film Analysis: Cartoon Adventure with a Touch of Family-Friendly Tween Romance
Throughout this animated adventure aimed at tweens, the world of fairies is dedicated to gathering baby teeth of slumbering youngsters and placing treasure under their pillows. Skateboarding teenage rebel fairy Van (brought to life by Booboo Stewart) is less than thrilled about devoting his life to gathering baby teeth—a feeling that’s entirely reasonable. He is just slightly more interested in the financial workings behind it all: the fairies deliver the teeth to unseen goblins, who provide metal as payment. However, Van’s interest is piqued when he spots a goblin (played by Larkin Bell), who proves to be far from the ugly creature he expected.
An Unlikely Bond and Shared Threat
The stage is set for an exciting quest with a light sprinkling of young love (though it’s perfectly appropriate for children). The goblin and fairy groups are separated from one another, and nothing fuels the thrill of the forbidden to unite beings together. The two species as seen here are incredibly similar, yet each holds biased views about the other. Fairies are supposed to be entitled sorts, given to stealing anything they want, while goblins are allegedly dim-witted, foul-smelling, and primitive, but are in fact bright and advanced in technology.
Of course, such a setup needs a shared foe to join forces against, and this is duly provided in the form of a group of vicious spiders, voiced by Jon Lovitz and Fran Drescher. They make no secret about their intentions: they aim to devour the goblins and fairies, and they make for fairly bloodthirsty, if not especially competent, villains.
Target Audience and Final Thoughts
You won’t find very many animated films aimed at the kind of audience that is beginning to have early romances, but aren’t yet mature enough for the content 14-year-olds are watching instead of Twilight. If your child is in the right age bracket, this is unlikely to be their next all-time fave, but you could do worse.
The Tooth Fairy Story arrives in Scottish cinemas from 10 October and across the United Kingdom from 24 October.
