Do you sketch? If you do or don’t may determine how you approach the family-friendly film, “Sketch.”

Sketching is something of a compulsion for people who are creative and likely should become artists. I was once downgraded a point at Yahoo Search Marketing for doodling during meetings.

That was in Pasadena, where a Lake Street public mural (“The Motion of the Planets Around the Sun”) celebrated a cerebral doodler named Richard Feynman. Of course, it was more likely that the supervisor who complained was more aligned with Feynman on misogyny , than attempting to limit the creative mind.

As an artist, people start limiting you from the beginning. In kindergarten, the teacher questioned my naive attempts at shading. Later there was a question of whether horses could be blue. Then there was the subject matter: Bones. I enjoy sketching bones. Before the rise of Latino art and goth, a young girl drawing bones was not encouraged.

I think back to my junior high art classes when the teacher told me I could not spend the whole class just drawing bones (of animals). The teacher could have guided me toward something practical like biological illustration or even Georgia O’Keefe. My first art history classes did not include any female artists. Women were present as objects.

The film “Sketch” centers on a young girl and her family. The kids, Jack (Kue Lawrence) and Amber (Bianca Belle) are maternal orphans. Their mother has died. Their father, Anthony Hale), is struggling to keep the family mentally moving forward. The daughter is the sketch artist with a naive style that doesn’t consider shadows or perspective or any taint of realism, but there’s a darkness to her current art that concerns her teachers.

When the school counselor at Green Leaf Park Elementary School gives her a book to express her darkest thoughts, the drawings continue. Her medium is blunt-ended crayons scrawlings.  Then there’s a magical pool that takes those drawings and turns them into real world monsters of crayon wax and chalk dust. This first one the audience sees is a blue monster named Dave with one googly eye and another 2D one. Dave attacks the kids on their way to school as they are in the school bus.

The kids escape and Jack and Amber escape to their house and eventually team up with Amber’s nemesis at school, Bowman Lynch (Kalon Cox). Bowman convinced the teacher to name the class pet, a guinea pig, after Amber so he could announce “Amber pooped.” Together, the kids will battle eye-ders which should unearth everyone’s arachnophobia.

Anthony will team up with his sister, Liz, and face some of the sketches come to life. Bowman will redeem himself and this family of Jack, Amber and their father will reconnect as a family.

Although this features some scary music on the soundtrack, this is a comedy and very family friendly. It is about handling grief individually and as a family. Having been a paternal orphan from middle school, I understand that journey and the darkness it can cause. Feelings often come out in one’s art or artistic expressions and this film, written and directed by Seth Worley has the right tone to be family friendly, even in its frightening moments. While this film won’t get any stars for diversity, the actors playing the three kids are all believable and relatable. Initially, I was disappointed in how the script portrayed Amber, but that concern was remedied by the second half. This is a very promising first feature film from Worley.

The film did remind me of both the 1956 science fiction film “Forbidden Planet” where our heroes are threatened by monsters of the id and the 1989 Olivier Award-winning jukebox musical, “Return to the Forbidden Planet,” but mostly because we have monsters of the mind. The monsters in “Sketch” were designed to minimize the horror and encourage artists of all levels to engage in creativity.

I love that kids (and adults) can make their own monsters using an app (Angel.com/Monstermaker). I hope all age groups will sketch their inner most feelings as creatures and let their ids march on.

As for the supervisor who downgraded me for doodling, he was forced to leave Yahoo Search Marketing for other questionable and illegal restrictions place on me. HR, of course, was more interested in protecting the company. I did not stop doodling and have recently returned to drawing. That makes this film personally timely, but it also shows how time has changed. When I was about Amber’s age, I remember a classmate confidently telling me that girls/women could not be artists.

Everyone should find their inner child and create, even if those drawings are goofy looking. This is a great family-friendly film to open up the lines of communication and encourage creativity. Art can be therapy and so can films.

“Sketch” had its world premiere at 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. It was released in the US on 6 August 2025.