Smallfoot

October 2018

Smallfoot 

Smallfoot. Karey Kirkpatrick, Jason Reisig, directors. Channing Tatum, actor. Warner Bros, 2018.

With its charming characters and family friendly comedy, Smallfoot proves that a timely message does not always have to be delivered by a serious drama or art-house indie film. Inside of the cute yeti packaging is a message about perspective, truth, and how we view “the other” in our lives. In essence it has a message that everyone in our culture needs to hear. 

“Smallfoot” tells the story of Migo (Channing Tatum), a yeti who is happy to live his life by “the stones” - the laws that all yeti follow. Until a misadventure brings him face to face with a “smallfoot,” a human. He usually wouldn’t go against a stone, but the stones say smallfoot are not real, and he knows that he saw one. Choosing to be exiled from the community instead of lying to the other Yeti, he decides to bring a smallfoot back to his village to prove that what he saw was real. When he succeeds, he begins to discover the darker reason for the laws written in stone, and has to choose between the safety of ignorance or the responsibility of knowing the truth. 

Though it would be easy to write Smallfoot off as a cute children’s movie, with catchy pop music and light hearted comedy, it teaches lessons that need to be heard, not only by children but by their parents as well. When a movie can be both light hearted entertainment and present challenging themes, it deserves to be taken seriously, whether or not the smallfoot exists.