Over the moon - 2020

 It was… nice, but not great. I like the animation and the characters (sort of) while they are on Earth, then it becomes bizarredly absurd once she gets on the moon. I mean, every animated movie is somehow absurd and one needs to leave logic behind, but here it’s really going too far… I didn’t like all the part where the kid makes her own rocket and gets to the moon.

The songs were good though.

Anyway, details.

FeiFei has a perfect life, with a father and mother who love her very much, and their little shop where they make moon-cakes, living in a nice little town, it’s all very idillic. It doesn’t last long though, because her mom gets sick, and after a long illness she dies. Still, FeiFei has her father and they go on, year after year, keeping up with their work at the shop, like an unbreakable team, until dad brings home Mrs Zhong, so she can meet FeiFei. It’s pretty obvious that dad is romantically involved in her, so much so that the woman’s son, Chin, already calls her sister.

FeiFei is annoyed with the little kid - he’s only eight. I don’t know how old she is, she acts like something in between a child and a wanna-be-adult, probably 12, 13, 14 or 15 tops.

FeiFei doesn’t like Chin and his mother, she doesn’t give them a chance because she doesn’t want them near her family, she doesn’t want her father to replace her mother. He tells her that sometimes he felt lonely, but she’s like ‘he has me!’… a child, but a petulant one.

When she was younger, her mother told her the story of Chang’e, the moon goddess, who became a goddess when she ate a pill of immortality, thus leaving the mortal world and her true love Houyi, and since then she’s all alone on the moon, thinking of him and waiting for him. Quite a sad story, if you ask me, I don’t see why she loved it so much and why they laughed about it.

At the moon festival, all her relatives join them and her aunts start talking about the goddess, and one of them says Chang’e took both pills to leave Houyi behind, and when FeiFei started protesting, she was mocked for still believing in that old story.

FeiFei thinks that her father should do like Chang’e, believe in true love and wait for it for eternity (the poor man) so she decides that if she shows him proof that Chang’e is real, everything will be as before between them, with no more Mrs Zhong and her son.

She starts studying for a way to build a rocket that will get her on the moon, and after various attempts she finally manages to build a good one. Chin joins her hiding inside, and his added weight almost makes them fail, but two flying space dogs rescue them and land them on the moon.

Craziness ensues.

It’s an explosion of colours and bizarre creatures, everything is bright and colourful. The goddess is like a super pop star, and insists FeiFei brings her The Gift, and in exchange FeiFei will have a picture to show her father.

A crazy, all too long race starts, FeiFei against all the creatures of Lunaria because whoever will give her The Gift will have a wish fulfilled. FeiFei goes back to her rocket, but has no idea what it is she’s looking for. She sees a Chang’e-doll, given to her by her mom as a gift, so she thinks that’s it. Some space chickens steal it and she tries to get it back but it gets destroyed.

During all this, Chin keeps trying to help his ‘sister’ in any way he can, poor child.

FeiFei thinks all is lost, and a creature tries to brighten her mood by letting her know how Chin helped her and they eat something. She finds a mooncake in her bag, given to her by Mrs Zhong, and inside it there’s a piece of jade, a half circle that is the missing piece of a pendant of Chang’e’s necklace. That’s the piece she needed, so now she can summon Houyi and be reunited with him, only it doesn’t last, because he’s dead, been dead long years at this point.

Chang’e is devastated, she falls into depression obscuring the whole moon, and FeiFei tries to talk to her. She’s the only one who can easily reach her because she has the same sadness inside, and she becomes a victim of the same depression.

Only now the goddess shows herself for the kind good person FeiFei’s mother talked about, and she talks to her about moving on and having her loved ones always with her and the usual stuff.

Chin breaks the barrier to reach his ‘sister’ , and the other creatures of Lunaria finally reach their goddess to show her that she’s loved as well, she’s not alone.

Now FeiFei has her photograph and can go back to Earth, with the help of space-creatures since her rocket is now destroyed.

The pictures burn when they reach the atmosphere, despite the fact that her fingers don’t, but it’s ok, apparently FeiFei has gotten over her little fit and is ready to let her father have a bit of a life.

At the end we see the family at another moon festival, maybe a year later, and now Mrs Zhong has married her father, and Chin is officially her brother, but it’s ok, the woman is very sweet and kind, and they are a beautiful family together.

ITA Over the moon - il fantastico mondo di Lunaria