A better title might be “Orion is Afraid”, or maybe “Charlie is Afraid”.
What odd timing, for Orion and the Dark to come out so close to the similarly-themed-if-pitched-at-a-very-different-audience Beau is Afraid. Were Charlie Kaufman and Ari Aster comparing notes, over a few cups of coffee?
Other than its general theme of anxiety, the unusual structure is the most obvious evidence of the author’s usually idiosyncratic touch. There’s about 15 minutes of table-setting, 17 minutes to reveal the framing device, and an 1 hour and 20 minutes until we zoom all the way out to the outer framing device.
It is otherwise very conventional and generic. I’m disappointed that I am forced to repeat my complaint about almost every single English-language animated feature: Orion and the Dark is just as hyper-verbal and overwritten as any mainstream animated feature, constantly spewing with torrents of ceaseless dialogue. The dominance of text over imagery is holding the entire animation medium back.
But I did like its pretty funny (and timeless) joke about non-apologies.
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