“Over the Moon”

        Grief is a fickle thing and one of the rites of passage of the human experience. Losing someone is hard, especially if that person was someone that was beloved. The animated musical film, “Over the Moon”, explores the path of grief through the lense of a 13-year-old science nerd, Fei Fei, and the moon goddess, Chang’e.
        Chang’e was a woman who took a potion that turned her immortal and caused her to reside on the moon as the goddess, but she had to leave the love of her life, Hou Yi, a hunter. She has waited for many years for him and wants to find a way to return him to the land of the living. Fei Fei always felt a closeness to the goddess, believing in the stories that her mother told her, and she still clings to that belief four years after her mother’s death. Her father has decided to move on and is engaged to another woman, Ms. Zhong. When celebrating the Moon Festival, she is inspired to prove that her mother’s stories are true and begins to build a rocket to the moon. At the launch, all seems to go well until she finds her future stepbrother has snuck on board, adding extra weight that she didn’t calculate for. She miraculously makes it to the surface of the moon and is taken to the palace of Chang’e, who tasks her people and Fei Fei with a quest to bring back the gift before she cannot bring Hou Yi back to life. Fei Fei goes on an offbeat journey across the moon with an unexpected companion.
        After all the work was done to bring back Hou Yi, he did not want to stay, causing Chang’e to go into a depressed state, letting the light in the moon die. Fei Fei tries to reach her, but she remembers her own loss and she spirals as well. They were two women fighting so hard to keep the memory of their dead alive, that they did not have the chance to accept that they were gone. They had to remember that just because that person was gone, love was not lost but was in the others that were left behind. Grief takes a different amount of time and can look wildly disparate, but there is a time to accept that death is just another process of life and moving on is possible when you hang on to those around you. Grief doesn’t have to happen alone.
        One of the best parts of the movie is that it features female leads, and not stereotypical women. They are smart, emotional, ambitious, and imperfect, but most importantly they are Asian women and girls. It was so nice to see characters who looked like my family and acted like my family on screen. Women who cry and mourn are not weak, but showing signs of strength.
        “Over the Moon” is available to stream on Netflix.