‘Allen’ Review: What Happens When Your Childhood Best Friend Finally Comes Home?

‘Allen’ arrives on Netflix as the first live action feature from Ludo Studio, the Australian company best known for ‘Bluey’. Co-directed by Daley Pearson and Jeffrey Walker, the 105 minute film asks what becomes of a kid who never got over the alien he once befriended.

The setup is simple and easy to love. Young Petey meets a small visitor from the sky on the Queensland coast, they swap snacks and games, and he begs his new pal to stay together forever. Allen vanishes in a beam of light, leaving a ring shaped scar on Petey’s palm, and twenty years later the grown up Petey (TJ Power) is still living in his brother’s house, still waiting for a signal from the stars.

This is where my feelings about the film start to pull in two directions. The opening stretch is a genuine pleasure, with a bedroom crammed with 90s toys, a folder of Tazos and a stash of Cheezels, all lit with a warm, dreamy glow that made me feel nine years old again. When the story turns to the adult Petey, the idea of a man who treats his best memory as a life sentence gives the film a real ache underneath all the silliness.

Allen himself is a technical triumph. He is built from a mix of physical puppetry and digital work, and the payoff is that the actors look like they are truly performing opposite something alive. Those big eyes do a lot of heavy lifting. The trouble is that his personality never gets much beyond cute, and the soft little cries that start out endearing begin to wear thin well before the credits.

The script is the film’s biggest stumbling block. Every emotional beat gets announced out loud, and then announced again, so that by the time the goodbye arrives there is almost nothing left for the audience to feel on their own. The colours are also turned up so bright that the whole thing can look glossy and artificial, which works against the handmade charm of the creature. Benedict Hardie’s local police chief Rory feels like a generic bad guy dropped in from another movie, and the reason for Allen’s return, while fun for a while, follows a path that will feel familiar to anyone who has watched a few family adventures.

Still, the human side holds up. Power balances goofy comedy and sadness well, and Charlotte Nicdao and Josh Helman bring real warmth as the brother and sister in law who love Petey but are tired of waiting for him to grow up. Their scenes keep the film tethered to something recognisable, which makes the stranger turns in the second half land with more weight than they otherwise would.

That second half does get darker and odder than the cheerful marketing suggests, and I admired the nerve of it even when the execution got clumsy. The ending ties things up neatly while leaving the door open, and it left me smiling more than shrugging. Few family films try something this personal and homemade, and that counts for a lot.

For me, ‘Allen’ is a sweet, uneven, sincerely made oddity that wins me over with its heart even as its heavy handed writing keeps tripping it up. Its creature work and nostalgic detail are worth the price of admission, but a lighter touch with the dialogue would have made it special. I give it 7 out of 10.

Did ‘Allen’ win you over or did it explain its feelings one time too many, and do you agree with my verdict in the comments?