Review
Arco (2025)
image: Diaphana Distribution
Director: Ugo Bienvenu
Writers: Ugo Bienvenu, Félix de Givry
Cast (English Dub): Romy Fay, Juliano Valdi, Natalie Portman, Mark Ruffalo, Will Ferrell, Flea, Andy Samberg
Run Time: 1h 28m
UK Rating: PG
8/10
Arco will draw inevitable comparisons to Studio Ghibli, with its Japanese animation aesthetics and ecological disaster backdrop. However, despite the film wearing its many inspirations on its sleeve it still manages to do something novel and interesting with a premise that may seem well worn and familiar. The film plays out over two visually distinct timelines, creating an unsettling and uncomfortable look at futures. The bleak reality of the ravages of climate change meshes awkwardly with the child friendly story and generates a dissonance throughout. The environmental collapse is never really acknowledged by characters though, it’s simply a horrifying backdrop (one that hits a little too close to home) to what’s an otherwise a very light film.
Ten year old Arco Dorrel (Juliano Valdi) lives an agrarian lifestyle in the far off future of 2932. The entire earth has been flooded and people live in homes elevated by stilts. His parents and sister travel through time using rainbow capes to find seeds and crops to cultivate but Arco is too young to legally travel with them. He’s jealous, wanting to see dinosaurs first hand and steals his sister’s rainbow cape whilst the rest of his family are asleep. Inevitably this goes wrong and he ends up crashing into 2075, being discovered by Iris (Romy Fay). She’s a ten year old living with her baby brother and caretaker robot Mikki (whose voice is a mixture of Mark Ruffalo and Natalie Portman who play her parents) in a house protected by a bubble against the extreme, unpredictable weather. Children in Iris’ era are completely bereft of any physical supervision from adults. Her parents only interact with her and her baby brother through projections at mealtimes and bedtime stories and she’s taught by robots in holographic classrooms. Arco is injured and needs to recover the gem he lost in the crash to return to his future, but they’re being pursued by three brightly coloured brothers (played by Andy Sandberg, Will Ferrell and Flea) who seem intent on capturing the time traveler.
image: Diaphana Distribution
Arco was first conceived as an illustration by Ugo Bienvenu the director of the film. He drew a rainbow that transforms into a man during the difficult, solitary months of COVID 19 lockdowns. Bienvenu showed the drawing to producer Félix de Givry and the pair began to flesh out a story. They saw the design as a symbol of hope during uncertain times. After creating an animatic of their vision, it was shown to Natalie Portman (who shares an agent with Bienvenu) and the actress came on board as producer helping to secure funding for the full length feature film. Arco has a vibrant colour palette and although the animation isn’t as fluid and expressive as some of its inspirations, it is still a remarkably distinct film. Its 2D animation has rich and detailed backgrounds but the characters are all fairly nondescript recalling the simple designs of the 2022 television show Scavenger’s Reign rather than the hyper expressive faces of Japanese animation. It works though, especially in the context of the emotionally disconnected 2075 where Romy longs for a physical connection to her parents and has been raised by Mikki, a robot who lacks any facial expression. The voice cast of the English dub of the film is excellent, especially in the friendship between Arco and Romy which feels naturalistic.
image: Diaphana Distribution
There’s an imbalance in how simple and derivative the story is (a naive mixture of Steven Spielberg’s 1982 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Chris Marker’s 1962 film La Jetée) and how and the truly terrifying collapse of Iris’ world. Storms that displace cars and tear down trees and a raging forest fire that characters don’t even feel the need to comment on. The horror is how completely normalised this situation is for our young protagonists. Iris’ sterile future, where the care of society is placed solely on robotics and technology is contrasted with the organic, close family bond we see nearly a millennium later. For a film born of a need for optimism and hope its vision of the near future is incredibly bleak, alluding several times to how the drastic dangers of the ecological disaster they’re facing in 2075. All of this is a little too scary for children, as is the upsetting nature of the film’s conclusion which I feel will be a little much for some adults (although it’s an ending undercut by the existence of time travel). I understand that children shouldn’t be sheltered from the realities of life but parents should be prepared for some awkward conversations regarding why the future looks so nightmarish.
Arco is a good film, the central rainbow time travel is a singularly evocative image and the idea that we need connection and understanding to progress is a timely reminder but the film sits awkwardly between being a family friendly sci-fi and a truly harrowing apocalypse. The story's suggestion that humanity as a species can continue after disaster is difficult to swallow with the understanding that it will only be after extreme hardship that we’re able to rebuild. Still, I believe that Arco will resonate with those willing to engage with the film at an emotional level, without irony and willing to overlook its unoriginality.
Watched on Amazon Prime
Published 19th August 2026