LEAP
Humdrum Child Adventure with Bad Messages
What You Need To Know
LEAP is a tale of two orphans in the 1880’s with big dreams, but when they finally escape the orphanage and flee to Paris they discover that following their dreams is a lot harder than it seems. While LEAP seems like an innocent, family-friendly tale, it leaves much to be desired. Most of the humor is too benign for adults, and while the movie may be fun for youth, it sends a dangerous message that anything is acceptable when following your dreams, even lying.
Félicie and Victor have lived in an orphanage outside of Paris their whole life, but always had dreams of something more. Félicie dreams of being a ballerina, while Victor has his sights set on being a great inventor. When Victor finds out about a Ballet school in Paris where Félicie might train, the two finally decide to run away and their adventure begins. Almost immediately upon arriving in Paris, the two get separated, and the movie follows Félicie on her adventure to become a ballerina.
Félicie sneaks into the ballet school, but is quickly turned away. Being a ballerina is going to be harder than she thought. She quickly befriends Odette, the cleaning woman who lives with a villainous aristocratic family. The daughter of the family is Camille, a spoiled girl, who does nothing but train to be a ballerina and is expecting an acceptance letter from the school. When Camille offends Félicie by breaking her prized music box, Félicie takes matters into her own hands, stealing Camille’s letter and impersonating her in order to train and audition for the Nutcracker ballet. Will she be able to prove herself and keep up her secret identity?
While there are some light and fun moments in LEAP, it is ultimately a forgettable movie. The comedy relies on slapstick or toilet humor that may be funny for children, but doesn’t provide anything of substance for adults. Félicie and Victor achieve their goals rather quickly, and from that point, the movie meanders through forced conflict and a series of subplots that simply fill time.
The main flaw of LEAP is inherent in its premise: Félicie must lie in order to fulfill her dreams, which sends the message that immoral behavior is acceptable if it is for a greater good. Unfortunately for her, Félicie’s secret gets out despite her continued effort to continue the ruse, but she is not taught a lesson about honesty or coming clean in the process. From then, she is able to rely on her passion, not necessarily her skills, to get her to where she wants to go. Parents should be strongly cautioned against taking their young children to a “family-friendly” movie that ultimately teaches disobedience to adults and lying above hard work to follow dreams.
The Content Guide
The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.
Content Summary
Very strong romantic worldview (follow your dreams no matter what moral values you break, combined with the idea that the ends justify the means); no foul language, but toilet humor including jokes about flatulence, bird poop, and a character says they wet themselves; multiple scenes of cartoon violence including a motorcycle chase, train chase, a villainous character leading the protagonists to danger, a cartoonish moment of knives being thrown, and multiple instances of a clumsy character injuring himself for comedic effect; no sex; no nudity; children visit a bar where men are drinking; no drugs; morality problem with the main character lying to make her dreams come true (which ultimately pays off without her learning a lesson).
