Disney’s The One and Only Ivan was originally slated for a late-summer big screen release, later shuffled to the company’s direct-to-consumer streaming platform Disney+ after it became very clear that this would be an unprecedented season without theatrical exhibition. And on one hand its small-screen debut is a huge bummer – this is the kind of slick, big-hearted entertainment that Disney is known for and is best enjoyed on the largest screen possible, surrounded by an audience that is crying and laughing alongside you. But The One and Only Ivan is also a surprisingly understated, emotionally complex and contained in many ways – it’s a drama about a small group of animals confined to a claustrophobic, repetitive existence in a grungy circus behind a fading strip mall. In other words: it is a perfect reflection of 2020. And enjoying it at home now seems like the only way we could have watched it.

Based on the award-winning children’s book by K.A. Applegate, which was inspired by an unbelievable true story (of course there are images from the actual events during the credits), The One and Only Ivan refers to a gorilla named Ivan (voiced by Sam Rockwell) who has lived with Mack (Bryan Cranston), a wannabe P.T. Barnum-style zookeeper and emcee, for as long as Ivan can remember. At the strip mall (it was partially filmed at the same Florida mall where Edward Scissorhands had his salon), he is surrounded by a literal menagerie of colorful creatures – a regal elephant named Stella (Angelina Jolie), a performing poodle named Snickers (Helen Mirren), a baseball-playing chicken named Henrietta (Chaka Khan), a rabbit that drives a fire truck named Murphy (Ron Fuches), a neurotic seal named Frankie (Mike White), and a talkative parrot named Thelma (Phillipa Soo). There’s also a scruffy stray dog who serves as Ivan’s sidekick and is eventually named Bob (Danny DeVito).

The mall is slowly dying, and Mack is in need of a big draw for his backwater circus, so he secures a baby elephant named Ruby (Brooklynn Prince) in an attempt to attract a larger audience. (The movie is ostensibly set in the early 1990s, although this is never made explicitly clear, a baffling decision given how much nostalgic mileage they could get out of the setting a la Captain Marvel and how, while not exactly forgivable, this kind of set-up would be more understandable if it happened a few decades in the past.) When tragedy strikes the circus (because of course it does) and Ruby fails to draw a crowd, Mack gets even more desperate, eventually turning to Ivan, formerly the marquee attraction but reduced to second fiddle upon Ruby’s arrival. Ivan has set aside his tough guy image and has begun drawing a series of tableaus suggesting there is much more to the ferocious animal. (Ivan forms a bond with a young girl whose father works at the circus and whose mother is sick.) Mack jumps on this as the next potential hook – Ivan the artist!

Both in the plotting and production, The One and Only Ivan makes a series of intriguing choices that elevate it beyond your average afternoon family programmer. The screenplay by the great Mike White (he also plays the seal and has a cameo as a passerby) refuses to ever become too simplistic or maudlin, with white stuffing the story full of complicated characters with conflicting emotions. Mack owns a cheesy circus and is definitely a huckster but is far from a cruel zookeeper; you get the impression that he genuinely loves the animals. And the animals in the circus long for their freedom, sure, but they also feel an attachment to each other and an obligation to perform in the circus (Ivan refers to himself on more than one occasion as an actor; his ennui has shades of Gore Verbinski’s gonzo Rango). Every character feels more than you would expect them to in a movie like this, one that could have easily trumpeted a simplistic, feel-good eco-friendly message without any of the uncomfortable messiness on display here. Nothing is easy, which is especially true when the animals mount a nighttime escape that sets them back considerably.

And in some ways the act of making the movie the way that director Thea Sharrock and her gifted collaborators chose to feels like its own defiant political statement. Instead of using real animals and manipulating their mouths via effects after the fact (something that Babe and countless other productions have done), the animals  here are wholly computer-generated. The animals are by the talented artists at MPC, the same effects house that worked on other creature-filled Disney wonders like Dumbo, The Lion King and The Jungle Book, but these characters, while still incredibly lifelike, aren’t rigidly beholden to their real-world counterparts and their stiff physicality. The One and Only Ivan animals are allowed more expression and feeling, which is a true gift for a movie that hinges on the emotional connection between the characters and the audience. Making a movie about, at the very least, the abuse of basic animal rights, while making real animals perform in a similar fashion, would have been totally hypocritical. Sharrock understood this and made a wise decision that leads to a more deeply felt and emotive movie, full of moments big and small that will tug – yank! – at your heartstrings. (PETA has already gotten behind the movie in a big way.)

There isn’t much of The One and Only Ivan that takes place outside of the rundown mall, which definitely contributes lack of period texture, making it weirdly unmoored. (And a flashback to a young Cranston taking Ivan to the drive-in to see Disney’s animated Robin Hood doesn’t do much to help because it was re-released every few years.) But the lack of an outside world helps underscore the movie’s thematic concerns about how each character – whether they are a strip mall zookeeper or a mighty gorilla – is living in a prison that is partially of their own construction. The outside world doesn’t matter because the walls they’ve built around themselves, conversely comforting and constricting, are all that they see. In the end The One and Only Ivan is about every character embracing the unknowability of the world outside their holding cell and understanding that it’s only through this scary, shaky process that you’ll ever grow.

With a running time of less than 100 minutes, The One and Only Ivan is understated, with its shimmery Craig Armstrong score and subdued cinematography by Florian Ballhaus, and efficiently streamlined. There isn’t a wasted moment or superfluous subplot. And in the movie’s closing scenes, both in the way that the story wraps up and the real-life imagery you see of Ivan over the credits, is undeniably powerful. (Also, you should stay through the first part of the credits for a delightful mid-credits scene. Hey, it’s the closest thing we’re going to get to a Marvel Studios stinger this summer.) If The One and Only Ivan had opened, as was intended, into a crowded theatrical marketplace, it could have easily gotten trampled and quickly forgotten. Like an amusement at some crummy strip mall. But with this gorgeous, quiet little movie, debuting exclusively on Disney+, now has the chance to be discovered and treasured. As it should be. Also, you can hug your pet immediately afterwards, which will come in handy as you’re wiping away the tears.

Grade: A-