Sketch

Spiritually Speaking in the Movies : “Sketch” 2025. PG 1h32m.

Should you take your children or grand-children to see it? Maybe. For girls, yes. But maybe not for boys. Also, there are caveats for scary scenes for younger children (under 10) and perhaps some sensitive-prone pre-teens.

INSTANT REVIEW for those with less time: 1) I would very much like to commend Sketch as a good-all around family film. I want to. I just can’t. 2) Sketch is for girls. Boys, not so much. 3) The ultimate point of Sketch is that boys (and even men) should be more like girls (and women). Is this really a message we want to be sending to our young men, at a near future in our country when male leaders with confidence will be needed?

The FULL REVIEW:

There is no doubt that Sketch, from Angel Studios (The Chosen), is a clever, well-produced, sometimes funny, sometimes heart-rendering, pre-horror story about a girl’s (Amber) run-away nightmarish imagination suddenly made real. Therein lies the fight. There are no overt spiritual references made in the story, except for the painful presence she contends with, and outlets in Amber’s sketches.

The idea is well executed. I was glad to see such excellence. The three main child actors are superlative. Their characters are well-versed in 21st century computer life. They are not clueless kids. Their banter and delivery of lines is also excellent and a delight to hear. How did child actors get so good? The child character of Bowman is so good, the actor must be an early comic genius. I will leave it to you to decide if Bowman is a girl or a boy. My wife, 11-year-old grandson and I were undecided about this until the film was almost over.

Also, the interaction between CGI and live-actors is impressive, said my grandson. He does 3D-modeling and plays VR games on a regular basis and was able to see subtle references about God, he said, in other video games referenced, that he regularly plays. He saw such clues in the movie that I, not a game-player, completely missed. More on that generational gap in another post.

Sketch is a professional effort from beginning to end. There are no glaring mistakes in the cinematography or soundtrack.

But there is something un-settling about Sketch. It’s the subtle, stereo-typical sub-text in films that is beginning to leave a bad taste in the spirit: and that is the slow denigration of boys and men.

Males today are being used as a regular foil, like a fad, for Hollywood’s clever script writers to delight audiences. Perhaps it helps a sagging box office a bit, or improves TV ratings, but at the expense of those males. It’s so pervasive in Hollywood’s follow-the-leader mind-set, a damaging trend, that once seen cannot be unseen.

This gender-bashing connotation is almost expected these days and simply slips by and hardly flagged as a foul anymore. I first noticed the not-so-funny gender-gang-up in films in the remake of the Lost in Space series, by Netflix, in 2018. Since then, the trend has only worsened. It makes one want to cry out, “C’mon Ref! Are you blind?!

For a comparison, I see little difference between today’s movies depicting males — including Sketch — and the decades-long depiction of Black Americans in films. They were less-than-capable, somewhat bumbling folk whose life-perceptions and abilities were presented as the butt of jokes, comical and needing guidance from benevolent white people who “knew better”.

Today, those distasteful caricatures have been replaced by bumbling, unenlightened boys or men who need guidance from the girls who know better. In Sketch, it’s just the women from the get-go — from the woman school psychologist to the all-knowing, confident adult sister, to little Amber herself — that have a grip on reality.

Should we really use human beings in that manner? Should we not seek to build boys and men up, spiritually speaking, rather than tearing them down, especially now, in these critical times? Don’t we need them too for what lies ahead, spiritually speaking, and not just as cannon fodder for film fun?

How does this happen in Sketch, one might ask? Here’s how:

An adult sister, Liz, “helps” her brother, Taylor, whose wife has died leaving him with two pre-teen children. There is a bizarre rabbit trail conversation early on, whether this qualifies the children as “orphans," because mom is not there.

Liz seems to know all and sees all. Liz has the answers right at hand. She knows how to proceed. She is rational and in control. Taylor is not. Liz commands, more than suggests.

She challenges Taylor every step of the way, on what he is doing and how he doing it. His responses are comically presented, reminiscent of slap-stick. Liz consistently points out what is right, and how Taylor is wrong. All wrong.

Poor brother/dad Taylor simply bumbles his way through what is unfolding before him. Father is presented as well-meaning, loving and supportive, but clueless and confused. He really does not know what to do. It is clear that Taylor lacks wisdom, direction and understanding.

Does this remind anyone of how women, as moms, were depicted in movies and TV before Captain Marvel or Black Widow arrived on the scene ... back In the days when “Father knew Best.”? Must we wear the shoe on the other foot for years or decades before we realize it does not fit either? Sadly, it seems so.

With the three main children in Sketch, the slightly older boy, Jack, who is brother to Amber, is presented in exactly the same way, if not a bit more capable, than his Dad. He is caring and compassionate. He wants to help. But he blindly leaps forward into protecting his sister’s psyche, who really does not need emotional protecting, because she is right and he is not.

Jack is clever and quick. He uses his physical, male, strength to help Amber but, you know, he just doesn’t get it. He’s going about it all wrong, but as a result he provides the film’s action, along with Bowman. In that way, Jack is “rather stupid,” as men were presented in song in the hit film "Mary Poppins", so long ago.

If you don’t get that idea in the first two thirds of Sketch, Liz outright tells her brother Taylor, “I think you should stop worrying about Amber expressing her feelings and worry about”the boys who are not.

There it is: Women in Sketch — Liz and Amber — are right. Men — Taylor and Jack — have physical strengths, but lack spiritual understanding. It’s a one-dimensional presentation. I cannot be silent about this anymore. Damage is being done.

This unbalanced view of spiritual cooperation between genders weakens the strengths of both, because men, it is said, need to be hand-held and led. They don’t have spiritual input. That’s for Amber alone, and that’s not an effective world-view. It’s a stereotype, and may I say, to be avoided at all costs.

WHY?

Why in the world would girls who will be women, want boys who will be men who have no understanding, spiritually speaking, to fulfill their roles as leaders, protectors, providers or insightful guides, when they are consistently presented as people who can’t do it? Why would you trust them? I wouldn’t.

This is not the way to get boys who will be men, to embrace their gender. No wonder there is so much confusion about it. Why would boys want to be men, when it’s the girls who today are consistently presented as right? What hands are we playing into by joining this trend?

It’s time to put a stop to this momentum before the consequences of an unconfident generation of men are in place. Then what? It will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is not without consequences, what is being done.

I looked over at my 11-year-old grandson as he watched this movie, hoping he was not ingesting what I was seeing. But I know that sub-text is subtle and works like delayed-release medications. One day I may have to have a talk about how his own perceptions of the spiritual dimension are valuable, needed and even critical for his times coming ahead, times almost here. They are just around the corner.

Daughters will not come away from Sketch feeling like they just didn’t get it or were on the wrong path all along. I can’t say the same for your sons or grandsons. Be aware of this if you let them see it.