Pete’s Dragon

Children’s movies are tricky — if too light, the adults get bored, if heavy and complex, both kids and adults (perhaps even more) get traumatised. These films try to pull their punches but most end up being pretty upsetting regardless; more so to adults who have first-hand knowledge of love and loss than to the little people who, one hopes, have not experienced separation anxiety, death, and viciousness at close quarters just yet.

— Disney’s newest live action remake of its 1977 classic animated musical — is a bit wrenching for grownups, who know how cruel fate can be, with its blind reckonings and bad hands dealt to the nicest of people, while liars and thieves reign free (a certain very morally ambiguous presidential candidate with a toupee comes to mind).