Sketch is a film that will help Christian families stop and consider their emotions and take them to Jesus

Film: Sketch

Age rating: 12A

Runtime: 95 minutes

See this if you liked: Gremlins

Synopsis:

Taylor Wyatt is doing his best to solo parent his two children Jack and Amber after the tragic passing of his wife. Amber’s violent and disturbing drawings are causing major concerns for him and although he wants to encourage her creativity, he’s scared at the content. But then Jack accidentally drops his sister’s book of drawings into a magical lake, and her monstrous imaginations become real and begin to wreak chaos.

What I liked:

For a family-friendly horror movie, this was surprisingly funny! I should add, intentionally so. Tony Hale did a great job at being a supportive dad who is struggling to understand his daughter and her creative expressions.

I really loved the brother being the emotional anchor for the movie, his protectiveness over his sister whilst struggling to balance his own grief was a really interesting angle to go down. The young actor playing Jack, Kue Lawrence, was great and I’ll be keeping an eye out as I have no doubt he’ll be getting more roles in the future.

Just as Taylor is a good dad who treasures the gifts of his children, so too is our heavenly Father who cherishes us

This is a very creative film, with lots of clever designs of creatures and powers. The visual effects are impressive for a low budget movie, and although you never really feel like anything is real, the animation and creativity of designs help you stay in the moment.

What I didn’t like:

The action sequences weren’t engaging or creative enough for me. I found myself being slightly disengaged at points, although I very much wanted to be engaged as I loved the concept and the main characters. It probably suffered being a low budget movie as they couldn’t afford to do more creative sequences that might have helped the film’s pacing issues.

Overall, I’m not entirely sure what the target audience is for this movie. It’s too scary for children, it’s not engaging enough for teenagers or adults. But I will say it is a good streaming for an evening where you don’t have anything else to watch – it’s a solid film but not one to prioritise.

Notes for parents:

This is a mild horror movie, a very mild one. There are some creatures/concepts that will be disturbing for younger viewers but I imagine 12 and up would be okay – as always, I’d recommend watching first if you were concerned how your child might react.

Faith thoughts:

There’s a lie we’re taught which is that we have to fix everything, that it’s our responsibility to make everything better. But there are some things, if not many things, that are beyond our fixing. No matter how much we might like to be able to bring back the ones we love, we can’t. And as much as we’d love to fix how everyone feels, we can’t (sorry Chris Martin).

The only thing that can fix us is the power of God’s love and grace. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9.

Read more:

Christian parents can embrace the 6-7 meme and enjoy their children’s nonsense

3 problems, 1 solution – How Christian parents can navigate the culture wars. Part 1: The technological problem

How Taskmaster can inspire your family to celebrate God-given creativity

Baptism is the symbol of rebirth and new life in Christ, and this is seen in the magical pond/lake that not only fixes things but also brings Amber’s drawings to life. When we surrender to Christ we are transformed, it doesn’t always happen overnight but the more we journey alongside Jesus, the more we become like the one who made us.

Although we have God by our side, it doesn’t mean that life is void of challenges. We still experience injustice and grief.

‘Sketch’ very powerfully reminds us to not ignore our feelings. Running from the pain we encounter won’t get us very far and covering it up only leads to outbursts. But the important thing to do is to feel the emotions we’re feeling. Jesus wasn’t afraid to express his emotions – one of the most profound verses in the Bible is the shortest ‘Jesus wept’ John 11:35. Just as Taylor is a good dad who treasures the gifts of his children, so too is our heavenly Father who cherishes us. We can be open and real with how we are feeling when we pray. We don’t have to hold back our tears, screams and frustrations. God has experienced every emotion we could ever feel, to every extreme, and understands. He created us with emotions, so there’s nothing to fear about feeling these things, we can give them all to him.