Following films like “Mia and the White Lion” and “The Wolf and the Lion,” director Gilles de Maistre’s “The Black Autumn and the Jaguar” reinforces the French director’s dedication to making superficial, family-friendly films with environmentalism at its core. But as his latest offering shows, the noble principles of protecting wildlife and animals don’t automatically translate into a good screenplay or watchable movie. You might want to be moved by this seemingly environmentalist cause, but unfortunately “Autumn and the Black Jaguar” quickly turns into a frustrating experience in more ways than one, undermining the intelligence and taste of its young audience in the process.
Written by Bron de Maestre, the story revolves around Autumn (Lumi Pollack), a 14-year-old middle school student in New York City, who is lovingly raised by his single father, Saul (Paul Green). An ancient flashback takes us back to Autumn’s childhood when she was happily growing up in the Amazon rainforest. Although the exact location has not been completely determined, it has been offensively presented as a “strange” forest of some sort. Through those not-so-stylish cuts, we learn that Autumn was happily living with her parents and her best friend Hope, an adorable black jaguar she grew up with. (Although some of the surroundings are strictly effects-created, the animals are real—two rescued tigers, Hope and Gem, depict the wildcat at different ages.)
One day, poachers killed Hope’s mother and endangered Autumn, making Saul decide it was time to leave the rainforest for a safe life better suited to raising his daughter. When Autumn finds letters sent to her father by close family friend and indigenous chief Uri (Wayne Charles Baker) over the years, she discovers that Hope is in danger due to the threat of cruel hunters, and decides to travel to the Amazons once again to rescue her.
Autumn’s agoraphobic biology teacher Anya (Emily Bett Rickards) finds out what she’s up to in the most implausible way, heads to the airport in a panic, buys a ticket for a flight leaving in two minutes to stop Autumn and remembers to bring her infected. Save the hedgehog. The whole development is as ridiculous as it sounds, and in the end it is surprising. Why Anja didn’t just call Otum’s father, or inform the airline of the unaccompanied minor’s presence on an international flight, is anyone’s guess.
Once they arrive at their unnamed Amazonian destination, “Autumn and the Black Jaguar” takes a turn for the worse, treating Anja’s femininity and mental health struggles harshly. In a skirt suit and high heels, she’s often nothing more than a hysterical, screaming trope, and becomes a greater nuisance to Autumn with every passing hour. At the same time, Chief Ori and his tribe (again, created generically and namelessly) receive abusive treatment. In the costume and makeup department, hardly anything about the Ori people feels real, culturally specific, or lived-in.
If the movie had given Autumn and Hope a deeper story throughout, it would have at least been something worth rooting for, and an emotional thread that both adults and children could relate to. But “Autumn and the Black Jaguar” shortchanges viewers in this department as well, contenting itself with largely lifeless scenes in which the pair run around. For this reason, once they are reunited, the impact is constant – there are much more powerful clips of human and animal reunions available on YouTube and social media.
Meanwhile, the stakes don’t seem high enough when bad boss Doria Dargan (Kelly Hope Taylor) reveals her sinister plan to capture the jaguar. The poaching, deforestation and threat of extinction that tigers face is real and important, and one that all audiences – especially children – should learn about and care about. Unfortunately, “Autumn and the Black Jaguar” relegates these pressing issues to a film that feels like an after-school special.
Elsewhere, it’s not clear whether the film sends the right message about the ways in which humans should treat wild animals and wildlife. It is respectable and appropriate to have a certain level of fear towards rainforests and wild cats such as tigers. But in the film, the Amazon jungle is depicted as a playground, and Hope comes dangerously close to being seen as a pet. The worst crime in “Autumn and the Black Jaguar” arrives when Anga condescendingly preaches to the Amazon people as a white savior of sorts, reminding them that while rich people like Doria may give their families money, what they’re actually doing is endangering their lives. Children’s future.
Meister has undoubtedly done some profound good by working with rescue tigers and protecting the rest of their lives in an animal sanctuary. Unfortunately, the virtues of “Autumn and the Black Jaguar” stop there.