IT WAS SOME TIME AFTER DINNER and putting their young son down to sleep that my friends wanted to show me their newly remodeled bathroom. They knew we had done ours recently, sharing the hiccups we each experienced on the way to getting them done. For us the faucet got lost in transit from the vendor to the store; for them, their shower door came with a scratch in it. However, each of us were satisfied and thrilled with the results. They led me up the staircase where we landed in the front of a long dark hallway, except for these bright lights bursting out from a partially opened door. I was not sure what was going on because the lights seemed too bright to allow a child to be able to fall asleep. As the three of us came up to it, I tapped my friend on the arm and whispered, “What is going on in there?” She spoke into my ear, telling me their son could only fall asleep when every light was turned on in his bedroom. He was afraid of the dark. Gently pushing the bedroom door wider, she motioned for me to peek inside the room. There was a nightlight plugged into each outlet, a lamp that looked like a carousel on the nightstand next to the bed that had all the figures lit up, a light projector shining a full moon on the ceiling of the room and two lit mobiles hanging in corners that emitted light images of animals across the walls. I thought the room was ten degrees warmer than the rest of the house.      MY FRIENDS TOLD ME LATER THEY did not know what started their son’s fear of the dark, but he put up such a fuss if any of the lights were turned off that they resigned themselves to obliging him and hoped he would soon grow out of it. I felt I could relate in a way because I had certain rituals that had to be followed before I would go to sleep. We lived in an old apartment building that would creak and moan randomly. I needed the bedroom door partially open so I could see a slice of light from the hallway light fixture across the bedroom floor. I never slept alone because there was always an assortment of stuffed animals who I would let take turns sleeping with me. If it was not a stuffed animal then it was a few toy soldiers, though with them it was not unusual to wake up in the morning with an imprint of a soldier on my cheek. I remember looking under the bed was forbidden in my mind; I did not want to know what could be residing right underneath me as I slept. From these memories, I was curious to see what the story was about in this animated adventure comedy.      AFTER LISTENING EVERYDAY TO THE YOUNG boy’s fears about the night, the only thing Dark, voiced by Paul Walter Hauser (Richard Jewel, The Afterparty-TV), felt he could do was to show the boy exactly what Dark does through the night. It would require a lot of patience. With Jacob Tremblay (Room, Wonder) voicing Orion, Colin Hanks (Elvis & Nixon, Life in Pieces-TV) voicing adult Orion, Mia Akemi Brown (Alien Intervention, Twenty Five Twenty One-TV) voicing Hypatia and Ike Barinholtz (The Oath, Suicide Squad) voicing Light; this picture started out slow for me. Though the visuals were fun and some of the dialog was interesting, I just could not get into it due to the main character. About a third into the film, things started to make sense and I was able to appreciate what the writers were trying to do. I do not know if young children will understand the message, but for a children’s animated film, the script was more esoteric; it was an odd mix of adult and children’s themes. By the end of the story, I had a better appreciation for it, but I had to sleep on it first.

2 ½ stars