Movie Thoughts: Calamity (2020)

• Released: June 28, 2020
• Directed by: Rémi Chayé
• Running time: 1h 25min
• Rating 3.5/5

Synopsis

A pioneer girl named Martha Jane dresses up as a boy and goes on a journey to find some goods that were stolen from her caravan.

My Thoughts

For the record, I am not familiar with the story of the real Martha "Calamity" Jane, so I cannot speak for the accuracy of this movie. So I'll instead be talking about it as a movie only, not as an adaptation of real events.

This was honestly a quite good movie. Is it perfect? Nah, I wouldn't say that, but for what it is, it's really solid. It's a neat adventure story about this young girl finding herself and going on a quest to find what was stolen from her caravan. It's not a story with super high stakes or anything, but it still has a good story going on with plenty of elements of adventure to keep the watcher hooked.

The characters are also quite good. The highlights for me were of course Martha Jane herself, but also Jonas and the woman they later come across, Madame Moustache. There's other characters, too, but they're not super major or anything and these three are really the highlights of the movie for me. Especially the relationships between the characters were handled well. 

There's also Ethan, who at first is a bit of a one-dimensional bully but later does come around to being a more rounded character. Doesn't mean he's likable all of a sudden, but it's nice to see the bully character get some development at least.

The visuals of this movie are also a treat. The style doesn't use a lineart (not for the characters nor the backgrounds) and instead is mostly based on colors with some slight simple shading going on. So there's not a lot of depth or detail to the visuals, but it does make for a very unique and neat-looking style. It reminds me a lot of Long Way North, in a good way. It's apparently done by some of the same production companies, so it does make sense to have the style resemble one another. The animation is also very good.

If I am comparing it to Long Way North, I do have to admit that in the emotional department this movie doesn't quite hit as hard as the former. Long Way North really had this epic and emotional journey for the main character, and here Martha Jane's journey, while exciting and adventurous, doesn't quite have the same emotional impact than the other movie does. Which is fine, honestly. It does have a few scenes that do lean more towards the emotional side, but there's never quite the sense of loss that Long Way North had going on. So just know that going in if you're expecting another emotionally hard-hitting movie by the same studios.

Overall this is a pretty great movie. Lots of adventure, a neat girl power elements, well-developed characters with well-written relationships, and a cool look and good animation.