Arco Film Review: Looking to the Future with Hope

Arco may not be very original in its look or plot, but it brims with potent emotionality and a refreshing sense of optimism.

A young girl living in a 2075 filled with hovercars and robot manual labor chases a moving rainbow to find a visitor from the even more distant future lying at the end of it. Arco walks a fine line between sci-fi and fantasy, but it works.

It’s easy to spot the influences on an animated movie; the very style of a given film is the greatest hint as to whom the director has watched on repeat to find their movie’s voice. While ‘90s animation was dominated by Disney and its knockoffs, before segueing to a new millennium filled with Pixar’s CG exploits, it’s anime and the works of Studio Ghibli that animators will most frequently cite in their films. To wit, Arco is a blend of anime colours with Ghibli emotionality. It’s a decidedly French affair behind the scenes (and boasts Natalie Portman as a producer), but Arco’s inability to transcend its Japanese forebears means the most French thing about it is the pervading sense of déjà-vu.

The plot of Arco already invites comparisons to other films. In a distant future, a time and place dominated by tree-like cities stretching miles into the clouds from an Earth left to fallow. It reverses the dynamic of Miyazaki’s Castle in the Sky, with its aging floating castle, but the influence is readily visible. The animation style of Arco, clean but fluid, is reminiscent of the Ghibli maestro’s work, as is the character design.

The titular character is a young boy from this future world, whose parents and older sister work as scientists that travel through time to collect samples and information from eras past. They do so via rainbow bodysuits and capes that allow them to fly into time warps; think luge outfits designed for sliding down the time-space continuum rather than a track. Bienvenu’s imagination pulls from any number of sources, but he and co-writer Félix de Givry (The lead from Mia Hansen-Løve’s Eden) stitch them together in ways that put just enough of a twist on what came before to stand out.

Frustrated by his failure to accompany his family, young Arco sneaks out one night to steal his sister’s suit and attempt to time travel himself, but with grave consequences. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time used the same idea on a more localized scale, but the flight sequences, with the characters melting into rainbows as they approach warp speed, are undeniably eye-catching.

Rather than landing in the Cretaceous period to see a triceratops, our young lead crash-lands in the year 2075, leaving a rainbow in the sky for young Iris to follow. As is the way of such things, she finds the injured boy, brings him home and nurses him with the help of her live-in robot Mikki. The relationships between these characters are endearingly acted and rendered. Iris and Arco form a bond as outcasts from their families and peers; Iris sees her parents mostly over hologram calls, but Mikki’s sinister look belies his role as a caring parent to Iris and her infant brother Peter. Arco and Mikki wouldn’t look out of place in a child’s fantasy; the best friends (real or imagined) a little girl could want.

Less successfully imagined, however, are the nominal antagonists of Arco. Three roly-poly brothers are on the hunt for Arco but, while it’s eventually revealed why they want the boy, their presence serves only to disrupt the core narrative. Despite being voiced by the likes of Louis Garrel and Vincent Macaigne, this primary colour-dressed trio offers only bumbling physical comedy to keep younger viewers watching. It’s a pity Bienvenu feels a need to resort to this type of device, because the trio of Iris, Arco and Mikki is so strong on its own. Their bonds are tested as the world of 2075 is bombarded by climate-driven disasters of all kinds. Tempest winds and blazing fires threaten from all sides, with dizzying animation increasing the tension and emotions in the film’s most intense scenes. 

Despite that intensity, Arco refuses to be miserable. Its vision of a better future far from now is a tonic for an audience that may feel jaded by the news cycle. It’s certainly not naïve, and no outcome is guaranteed for any of its characters. Indeed, it bravely concludes on a bittersweet note that fits with its overall tone, pragmatic yet hopeful. For all its colour, Arco boasts a strikingly stoic message; in spite of how things are, we must keep on keeping on.

Arco premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 16, 2025 and will be screened again on May 17 and May 24.

Header Credits: Diaphana Distribution