Director Isaiah Saxon offers a sweet, visually-compelling fantasy for people of all ages, despite its rough edges.
The Legend of Ochi, Isaiah Saxon’s feature film debut under A24, spins a familiar tale for a new generation of audiences, one reminiscent of Steven Spielberg’s 1982 classic, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Much like its spiritual predecessor, a young protagonist befriends a displaced, otherworldly creature and endeavors to bring it home—the journey back becoming a transformative, coming-of-age experience where both parties touch each other’s lives in ways they could never imagine.
The film begins in an isolated village within the fictional island of Carpathia, depicted through wide shots of sparse, sprawling landscapes and a rough sea licking the land’s edges. A young teen named Yuri (Helena Zengel) sets the scene, narrating her people’s feud with wild, primate-like animals referred to as “Ochi.” Her father Maxim (Willem Dafoe) leads a rag-tag team of village boys to help him hunt the Ochi, who are considered “dangerous” pests for killing livestock around the island.
As audiences and Yuri will eventually learn, most of it is propaganda caused by fear and a lack of facts. The Ochi aren’t calculating, evil creatures: simply wild animals led by their natural instincts, grappling with the consequences of sharing their home with humans (a familiar tale for most wildlife in the world today).
During one of Maxim’s hunts, a baby Ochi gets stranded when the rest of its group flees. It’s made clear from the start that Yuri detests her father’s cause, Zengel playing the role of a frustrated black sheep. She returns to the spot and finds the baby Ochi injured; after tending to its wound, she sets off on a solo quest to return it to its mother—wherever she may be.
READ ALSO: 10 Highly-Anticipated 2025 Movies You Need To See
Humans Being Humans
In the middle of the adventure is a family drama that runs parallel to the Ochi’s search for its mother. Yuri herself is physically, and to some extent emotionally, distant from her mother Dasha (Emily Watson), who abruptly left her and Maxim years ago. As the veteran actors of the group, Dafoe and Watson play the estranged couple perfectly, bolstering their idiosyncrasies through a solid set of performances.
Dafoe excels at playing the eccentric, morally-grey father figure who fluctuates between serious threat and immature man playing dress-up with a cohort of impressionable boys. Watson brings a world-weary gruffness to Dasha, who sports a prosthetic wooden hand and possesses an acute understanding of nature and magic, including the ways of the Ochi.
Zengel also manages to convincingly portray a young teen who struggles to belong anywhere. Vulnerable yet guarded, she longs for connection while harboring anger towards both her parents—yet eventually coming to terms with the fact that they’re only human.
Bumps In The Road
There’s no delineation between good and bad in The Legend of Ochi, which omits a villain in favor of painting a picture of flawed people who hurt and get hurt, but are capable of being better if they only let go of their misconceptions. It’s a necessary message that can stand to be repeated in a world so divided (even at the expense of sounding cheesy), especially when the movie evidently welcomes younger audiences.
That said, The Legend of Ochi is by no means a saccharine piece. Like the works of Hayao Miyazaki, it refuses to talk down to its viewers, revealing the real world’s underlying complexities with a moderate amount of violent imagery (shotguns and knives), biting (because the Ochi are wild animals, lest we forget), mild swearing, and even a few face slaps. The film also contains light touches of that humorous Wes Anderson-esque absurdity, if you look close enough.
While it offers an enjoyable ride that’s short and sweet (only an hour and 35 minutes), the movie has its flaws. The plot could benefit from more world-building, especially with such a richly-rendered visual set up. While Yuri and her baby Ochi made an adorable pair, additional screen time to fully develop their relationship might’ve lent more emotional depth, the same way the shenanigans shared by the children and titular alien in Spielberg’s E.T. did. Save for a funny grocery mishap and some camping in the wilderness, the movie left me wanting more in the way of their budding bond.
Certain characters also have plenty of unrealized potential, including Maxim’s adopted son Petro (Finn Wolfhard), who seems to espouse his father’s aggressive inclinations, but actually possesses a softer heart behind closed doors—a characterization that could’ve, very subtly but with more intention, introduced an interesting conversation on machismo culture.
Keeping It Real
Among the film’s stronger elements are its breathtaking backdrops, most of the scenes shot in the misty roads, mountains, and lakes of Romania. This, paired with impressive animatronics and puppetry (which bring to mind Jim Henson and Frank Oz’s The Dark Crystal, or really any Henson film), made for an immersive experience that had me constantly wondering, Wow, how’d they do that? The answer: five men in suits skillfully maneuvering the baby Ochi puppet, something you just have to see for yourself.
This isn’t to say the film is devoid of technological aid like CGI, but in an era where studios are opting to replace the tactility and soul of human touch with a speedy set of AI word prompts, The Legend of Ochi stays true to Saxon’s vision of keeping practical effects alive—an incredibly refreshing ethos that will hopefully live on in future films.
Watching The Legend of Ochi feels a lot like eating a home-cooked meal pulled from an heirloom recipe: it’s nostalgic, charming, and clearly a work of care (even if it misses a few ingredients), a moment of wholesome respite in a world saturated with fast food. Is it a truly groundbreaking, five-star experience? Not exactly, but the aforementioned qualities make up for its shortcomings just fine.
Catch “The Legend of Ochi” in major cinemas nationwide starting April 25, 2025.
