The “how” behind Adult Swim veteran and videogame creator Julian Glander’s (Art Sqool) feature-length, filmmaking debut, Boys Go to Jupiter, an impressively realized, genre-bending animated film that has to be seen — and just as importantly, heard, not just for its dialogue, but its mellifluous, dream-pop/shoegaze-influenced soundtrack — is almost as miraculously wondrous as the singularly engaging Boys Go to Jupiter itself.
Painstakingly made over several years on a micro-budget, Glander leaned on Blender, the free, open-source, 3D modeling software program to create an animated world. For visual and narrative inspiration, Glander turned to retro videogames, Google Street View, The Sims, The Lego Movie, Sean Baker’s The Florida Project, Terry Zwigoff and Daniel Clowes’s Ghost World, and Wim Wenders’s Paris, Texas.
Set in a pastel-colored, semi-imaginary Florida filled with empty swimming pools, sandy beaches, and convenience stores, Boys Go to Jupiter centers on the aptly named Billy 5000 (voiced by Jack Corbett, Planet Money's host), a high-school dropout obsessed with obtaining $5,000 via a DoorDash-like delivery service, Grubster. His shiftless, aimless friends, on winter break between Christmas and New Year’s, mock Billy 5000’s obsessive determination to hit the magical $5,000. For Billy, that number represents the freedom to rent a place of his own and leave his older sister, Gail 5000 (Sorry, Baby's Eva Victor), and his preternaturally wise preteen brother, Peanut (J.R. Phillips).
Scurrying around on his two-wheeled electric hoverboard, Billy 5000 runs into a wide array of Floridians, some idiosyncratic, some not, including the proprietor of a dinosaur-themed mini-golf course, Herschel Cretaceous (Joe Pera), a recluse, Old Slippy (Cole Escola), and central to Billy 5000’s personal journey, an old school crush. Rozebud (singer-songwriter Miya Folick), who spends her days evading her responsibilities as the heir to the Dolphin Groves Juice Company fortune and the daughter of Dr. Dolphin (Janeane Garofalo).
Billy 5000’s vague dreams of escape are just that, dreams, but when a momentary lapse in judgment leads to the acquisition of one of the juice company’s most prized possessions, Billy 5000 faces a conundrum: Exchange said prized possession, an exploration-ready resource for Dr. Dolphin, but to Billy 500, something with irrefutably intrinsic value, for the supposedly life-changing $5,000 he desperately wants, or let it go free, ensuring Billy 5000’s continued destitution in an economy deliberately organized to keep him there.
The dilemma facing Billy 5000 alters not just the central character’s trajectory, but also results in a tonal change from the eccentricities of the first and second acts to something more self-consciously serious, specifically Billy 5000’s place within a gig economy (i.e., late-stage capitalism) that sees him and everyone like him, regardless of individual merit or even ability, as expendable. It’s only when Billy 5000 acquires an object the corporate Powers-That-Be desire that his value and/or status changes from negative to positive.
Heady thematic material for a brightly colored, whimsically animated film like Boys Go to Jupiter, but it’s also fully earned by Glander and his collaborators. Where Glander’s film leaves Billy 5000 might feel rushed or underdeveloped to some, yet it’s also feels both earned and deserved, giving the central character the “escape” he’s always wanted, just not in the manner or way he — or the audience — ever imagined for himself.
Buoyed by a psychedelic pop-infused, earworm-worthy soundtrack (Corbett sings on multiple tracks, Folick sings on one track, “Winter Citrus,” repeated twice in the film), Boys Go to Jupiter never ceases to delight, amaze, or impress, rising well above anything animation-wise currently in cinemas or available via streaming. Glander and company deserve all the goodwill coming their way, automatically elevating Glander's next effort into a must-see.
Boys Go to Jupiter opens today (Friday, August 8), in New York City, with other cities to follow in the coming weeks via via Cartuna and Irony Point.