A Tooth Fairy Tale Film Analysis: Cartoon Adventure with a Touch of Family-Friendly Preteen Romance

Throughout this animated adventure for preteens, the world of fairies focuses on collecting teeth from sleeping children and placing treasure under their pillows. Skateboarding youthful nonconformist fairy Van (voiced by Booboo Stewart) is less than thrilled about devoting his life to collecting baby teeth—a sentiment that’s completely understandable. He’s only slightly more curious about the underlying economics behind it all: the fairies hand over the molars to mysterious goblins, who provide metal in exchange. But Van’s curiosity grows when he catches sight of a goblin (played by Larkin Bell), who turns out to be far from the ugly creature he had imagined.

A Forbidden Bond and Common Enemy

The stage is set for an exciting quest with a gentle touch of young love (though it’s very much suitable for children). The goblin and fairy communities are estranged from each other, and there’s nothing like the thrill of the forbidden to bring people together. The two species portrayed in the film are incredibly similar, yet both maintain biased views about the opposite side. The fairies are supposed to be self-centered sorts, given to stealing anything they want, while goblins are reportedly stupid, foul-smelling, and primitive, but are in fact intelligent and advanced in technology.

Of course, such a setup requires a common enemy to join forces against, and this is duly provided in the form of some nasty spiders, voiced by Jon Lovitz and Fran Drescher. They make no secret with these guys: they want to eat the fairies and goblins, and they make for fairly bloodthirsty, though not particularly skilled, villains.

Target Audience and Overall Impression

You won’t find very many children’s animations targeting the kind of audience that is beginning to have first crushes, but aren’t yet mature enough for the content teenagers are watching in lieu of popular teen sagas. Should your youngster falls into this age group, this is unlikely to become their new favorite movie, but you could do worse.

A Tooth Fairy Tale releases in Scottish cinemas starting October 10 and across the United Kingdom from 24 October.