Jericho

From the thumbnail for this film it does look like it will be a comedy and indeed the one-line plot summary about the return of furry childhood toys also suggests that it will have a light tone at heart. The reality is far from this though as the film starts with a man in his fifties contemplating suicide after the death of his wife. Hearing a noise upstairs he goes to investigate and finds that his childhood toy, Jericho, has come alive and shaken itself out of storage in the attic. From here the film remains dark as it continues in the theme of a man struggling to overcome depression.

The idea here is great and I like the potential in the device of Blizzard and Jericho, however I must say that the film fell short for me on delivery. The message of overcoming appears to suggest that medicine has no role to play in battling depression and that accepting help from others is the key thing – it is an OK message but not particularly clear (I'm sure ten other viewers would have ten other opinions on that). The rain towards the end is also disappointingly simple and I didn't really think that the two puppet characters had a particularly good part in the short film and I was looking for them to do and say more to expand the narrative and the ideas. This feeling wasn't helped by the music and for me it was off-putting to have the sentimentality ladled on by the score – particularly as the film went on.

Lambert does well to find the heart of his character and it is a shame there was not strong support from around him. The two puppet characters are nicely tangible and I liked that they were "real" in the film, however again I didn't think they made the best impact and I also quite disliked the sing-song voice of Jericho – it was just another example of the sentimentality. It is a film worth seeing because it is engaging in how dark the content is compared to the visual presence of the puppets, but it doesn't make the most of the potential and it is far too heavy with the sentimentality too.