SKETCH

SKETCH tells the story of Amber, a little girl whose scary drawings accidentally come to life and start terrorizing her town. She, her brother Jack and their friend, Bowman. must fight the monsters and figure out how to erase them for good.

As the movie opens, Amber and Jack’s father, Taylor is struggling. Amber and Jack are still grieving the loss of their mother, and Amber has started drawing disturbing, scary images of violent monsters. A teacher at school gives Amber a special notebook, telling Amber to keep her drawings there and get her feelings out in a safe and healthy way.

Taylor tries to talk to his daughter about her drawings, showing her some of her old artwork. He tells her it’s important to balance the bad with the good and encourages her to draw something besides monsters.

Elsewhere, Jack is spending time in the woods near the family’s house. He trips and falls, scraping his hand and dropping his phone in a pond. When he retrieves his phone, he sees the phone screen has cracked. A few seconds later, it’s perfectly fixed. Later that night, Jack sees that his scraped hand, the one he put in the pond to get his phone, is also perfectly fine. Jack tests the pond one more time with a plate he and Amber broke the night before and becomes convinced that the pond can magically fix things.

The next morning, Jack takes his mother’s ashes and brings them to the pond. Before he can throw them into the pond, Amber, who’s snuck out after him, asks what he’s doing. The children fight and, although their mother’s ashes don’t end up in the pond, Amber’s notebook does. The pond starts bubbling, and Jack and Amber run back to the house. When they get home, Amber notices all the drawings have disappeared from her notebook.

Amber and Jack head off to school, but the bus comes across a wrecked car. A monster attacks the bus but, due to some quick thinking, the children get away, with pal Bowman in tow. Elsewhere, Taylor encounters some small, spider-like monsters and frantically tries to find his children.

Jack comes up with a plan to get rid of the monsters. They need to draw a special weapon that will destroy the monsters, drop it in the pond, and use it on the monsters. The children get separated, but Jack makes it to the pond. There, he sees a hooded figure drawing more monsters and dropping them in the pond.

Jack manages to escape and finds Amber and Bowman. Amber reveals that the hooded figure is a version of herself, someone who churns out drawings of scary monsters. However, Jack says that’s not how he sees her. He encourages her to draw something to defeat the monsters.

SKETCH is a funny and creative exploration of the way grief affects people differently, especially adults compared to children. The child actors, Bianca Berry Tarantino, Kue Lawrence and Kalon Cox, give amazing performances. Also, the special effects for the monsters are really good.

SKETCH has a strong moral worldview. It stresses family, friendship and processing grief in a healthy way. The father is devoted to his children and tries to help them deal with their mother’s death. Also, his children and their friend bond together and stick by each other. However, the movie features ideas of magical thinking in the magic pond and the monsters it brings to life. It also has some foul language. Finally, Amber’s drawings are very violent, and some scenes in SKETCH might scare some children. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for older children.

That said, the ending of SKETCH may remind many media-wise viewers of Philippians 4:8, which famously says, “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.”