Flora & Ulysses (2021)

The superhero power of this movie comes from its endearingly offbeat characters, goofy humor, and gentle insights about finding optimism even when things go wrong.

Flora & Ulysses veers close to falling into the trap of cheesiness that kids’ movies of this genre often find themselves in, but miraculously never does. In fact, this hopeful comedy, in showing how a twitchy-tailed hero can change a family, lifts off and flies.

We can’t all have a supeheroic squirrel to help find our own purposes in life, but Flora & Ulysses posits that we don’t need one — just a willingness to welcome their special kind of magic, in whatever shape it may take. Cynics, beware, “Flora & Ulysses” is coming for you.

While a little dark and a little unsteady—and boxed in a bit by the limitations of its genre—Flora & Ulysses still hits most of the right beats and manages to find some resonant, intelligent things to say about some pretty grown-up topics.

As a brief, brightly-coloured, virtual babysitter – lasting just long enough to keep the children diverted while you check in and out of that last Zoom meeting, and get dinner on the table – it dutifully fulfills its obligations. But anyone looking for much beyond that in this tale of a flying squirrel – well, they’d have to be nuts.