One of the few movies that came out during this pandemic is an animated Netflix Original called “The Willoughbys.” The Willoughbys have yarn for hair and everyone in the family, including the women, grow fantastic mustaches. A spoiler alert is in order from here on out. 

It is the story of four abused kids that send their parents on a deadly adventure in an attempt to orphan themselves. The children’s names are Tim, Jane and the twins have the same name: Barnaby. They call them the Barnabys. Eventually, the Willoughby children realize what they did was wrong and they try to correct it by finding their parents, but then their parents actually kill themselves.

Tim is the oldest of the children. He is also the most loyal to their parents, despite everything they do. His parents rarely feed them and they punish their own children by throwing them into a coal bin. Even the narrating cat (voiced by Ricky Gervais) thinks the children deserve better. Tim just wants their parents to love them instead of being the way they are, but he finds out you can’t change someone that doesn’t want to be changed. Jane is the middle child and she is the most optimistic of them, sort of. It was her idea to send their parents on the orphan making adventure, but she thinks they will find a family somewhere. The Barnabys are kind of weird, but it’s probably just because they have been deprived of love their entire lives.

The Willoughby parents hire a nanny to watch over the kids while they are away on their adventure. This nanny helps them when they need it and is an all around caring individual. At first, the Willoughbys didn’t know what to think about her. They eventually grew on each other though and had some adventures of their own.

Overall, I thought this was an interesting movie and I definitely recommend it.