'The Peanuts Movie' Meets Expectations

by Douglas Slayton

Charlie Brown's Peanuts

There are three distinct versions of Peanuts: Charlie Brown’s Peanuts, Snoopy’s Peanuts, and television’s Peanuts. Charlie Brown’s Peanuts is exemplified by Chuck’s continued failure and questioning of his own worth. Snoopy’s Peanuts is the exemplified by the over-merchandised, lovable optimism, and goofy animal antics that dominated the franchise near the end of Schulz’s life. Television’s Peanuts is the one that tries to find a balance between those two. But in the end, this version of Peanuts is usually smiling (as opposed to frowning) toward the audience, with Charlie Brown saying, “Good Grief” as everyone holds him above their heads. The Peanuts Movie wants to be all three, but most resembles television's Peanuts, updated for a new generation.

Snoopy's Peanuts

The basic plot of the film revolves around Charlie Brown becoming smitten with a new kid who is in his class, the famed Little Red Haired Girl, and attempting to get her to notice him. The film is structured in three distinct acts, each representing an opportunity for Charlie Brown to impress the new girl: a talent show, a winter dance, and a ceremony held in his honor. Each act is broken up by a Snoopy flight of fancy about the World War Fighting Ace saving his love FiFi. The way the story is broken up never feels forced or jarring, but, rather, highlights the dissonance that is present in Peanuts in general—which Kevin Wong documented in his well written piece. It is a necessary consequence of the film's need to serve two masters because of the prevalence of Snoopy in popular culture. The most successful thing about the Snoopy sequences is how they make it possible to have excitement in a film about children with giant heads cursing their own existence. It is a necessary element of a high budget, CG animated film from the creators of the Ice Age franchise.

In each act of the main story, Charlie Brown is given an opportunity to impress the Red Haired Girl but is always foiled, be it by chance or as the result of his being a good or honest friend. While this is reminiscent of Charlie Brown's Peanuts bemoaning life's futility, it ultimately fits safely in the structure of television's Peanuts. On television, Charlie Brown is still a loser, falling for Lucy’s tricks or losing his kite, but even his greatest failings only highlight what a good person he is. That is the Charlie Brown depicted in the film, as well. He is the best of us despite or, perhaps, because of his shortcomings.

It is a very good, if a touch inaccurate, film. While I am someone who has a strange, deep seeded love of Charles Schulz’s most nihilism impulses, even the sunnier versions of Peanuts do a lot to move me. I saw myself in the film by the end and wept, enjoying every minute of it. By taking Peanuts out of four panel strips, giving it a third visual dimension, and putting it in motion, it becomes something else. Schulz, even at his most saccharine, was still using children to address the questions adults have about life and its worth. The doom of his world was always at odds with the outwardly adorable appearance, so it was never a surprise that whenever someone other than Schulz has adapted that world for a larger audience, the sunny exterior would win over the darkness at the center.

This film could have been a mess, trying to honor a work over half a century old, trying to hit all of the buttons that people love, and also introducing the Peanuts world to a new generation. Luckily the film was ultimately a success. Even the CGI animation that had been the source of so much anticipatory consternation prior to the film's release is a joy to watch. Though we will never have a big screen adaptation of Charlie Brown's Peanuts, telling us that life has lost all meaning, I will take this version, indebted to television's Peanuts, and enjoy it all the same.

Doug Slayton is Professor Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.