The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021)

Fantasy/Animation

The Netflix feature The Mitchells vs. the Machines (Mike Rianda, 2021) gets the Fantasy/Animation treatment, as Chris and Alex offer up a discussion in this episode of the film’s dysfunctional family dynamics, road movie structure, and its spectacular sentient robots techno-narrative. Topics include the contribution of Sony Pictures Animation to the Hollywood computer-animated film industry and stylistic links to both Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, 2009) and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey & Rodney Rothman, 2018); The Mitchells vs. the Machines’ critique of technology that seemingly sits at odds with its own visual enjoyment of the pleasures of screen culture; timeless vs. timely storytelling via the contemporaneity of the film’s intertextual referencing and depiction of digital natives; the historical whiteness of AI and the racialising of voice-activated virtual digital assistants; the realisation of Katie’s queerness and the fraught logic of equating screen visibility with progress; the potential to read the family through neurodivergent frameworks; and how Mike Rianda’s film provides an ultimately uneven and highly performative portrayal of ‘madcap’ antics, female creativity, and outsiderdom.

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**