The defence The Sentimental Softie
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
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The One and Only Ivan
Family · Comedy · Drama · 2020
A gorilla named Ivan who’s living in a suburban shopping mall tries to piece together his past, with the help of other animals, as they hatch a plan to escape from captivity.
Movie details
The One and Only Ivan
“It's never too late to discover who you are.”
2020 Family · Comedy · Drama 1h 33m
Critical arithmetic
The consensus, allegedly.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
IMDb
6.6 / 10
13.9K votes
Rotten Tomatoes
72 %
Tomatometer
Metacritic
58 / 100
Metascore
TMDB
7.3 / 10
Community rating
External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.
A gorilla named Ivan who’s living in a suburban shopping mall tries to piece together his past, with the help of other animals, as they hatch a plan to escape from captivity.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over The One and Only Ivan?
For the defence
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
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Because of Winn-Dixie
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Where the Wild Things Are
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Scooby-Doo! Stage Fright
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Join Scooby-Doo, Shaggy and the Mystery Inc. crew as they head to Chicago for Talent Star, a hit talent show in which Fred and Daphne are finalists with some high hopes. Unlucky for them, the competition is frightful as the show is being broadcast from an opera house with a history of horrors and a particularly vengeful phantom that has cursed the show's production.
Scooby-Doo! and the Legend of the Vampire
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The Yowie Yahoo starts kidnapping musicians at a concert attended by Scooby and the gang in Vampire Rock, Australia.
The Jungle Book
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Raised by wild animals since childhood, Mowgli is drawn away from the jungle by the beautiful Kitty. But Mowgli must eventually face corrupt Capt. Boone, who wants both Kitty's hand and the treasures of Monkey City – a place only Mowgli can find.
Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical
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An extraordinary young girl discovers her superpower and summons the remarkable courage, against all odds, to help others change their stories, whilst also taking charge of her own destiny. Standing up for what's right, she's met with miraculous results.
Where it lives
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Thea Sharrock
Written by
Mike White
Bryan Cranston
Mack
Sam Rockwell
Ivan (voice)
Brooklynn Prince
Ruby (voice)
Angelina Jolie
Stella (voice)
Danny DeVito
Bob (voice)
Ariana Greenblatt
Julia
Helen Mirren
Snickers (voice)
Court is in session
Put The One and Only Ivan on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Cool Ironist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.