Rating: 9/10

“Toy Story 5” hit theaters June 19. It offers an interesting premise, reflecting society’s concerns about modern technology’s impact on children’s development and social skills. But in the bigger picture, it tells the age-old tale of being a kid who has trouble making friends because they’re different.

The film begins with 8-year-old Bonnie (Scarlet Spears) as the only kid in her neighborhood who still plays with toys and uses her imagination. Since all the other children are glued to their devices, she can’t make any friends. Her concerned parents buy her a “Lilypad” (Greta Lee), a tablet designed for children that is sentient like the toys, in the hope that it will help her connect with the other kids.

Lilypad gets Bonnie a sleepover with three girls from her dance class, but they’re so obsessed with their own Lilypads that they don’t interact with her or each other. Bonnie comes home bored and dissatisfied, and to make matters worse, the girls end up bullying her online for playing with toys instead of her Lilypad. When two of Bonnie’s toys, Jessie (Joan Cusack) and Bullseye, wind up at the house of another creative girl, Blaze (Mykal-Michelle Harris), the toys make it their mission to unite the two girls. 

In the end, the device-obsessed girls undergo no character development, but Bonnie and Blaze become friends through their shared love of playing with toys, with help from Lilypad, who reaches out to Blaze. Lilypad’s role in contacting Blaze acknowledges that modern technology can connect people, even if it cannot make up for the authenticity of real-life interaction.

We expect Lilypad to be the villain, but instead, the villains are the kids who pressure Bonnie into using the tablet, which is solidified by their lack of growth. Lilypad only wants to help Bonnie make friends, even though she ends up feeling like she only makes things worse. This makes a lot of sense, as technology does not advance to make us miserable; it’s the way people use it, or force us to use it, that makes us miserable.

The movie does not aim to solve children’s addiction to technology altogether because it knows that is not a fair expectation in a world that has made it essential. Instead, it focuses on the common frustration that technology is being forced upon us.

There’s a concern that children like Bonnie do not fit in because of technology, but the movie wisely acknowledges that children have always been made outcasts for thinking for themselves. Rejecting technology is just another way of rejecting conformity and embracing creativity. With four “Toy Story” films preceding this one, this depiction of growing pains is the one aspect of the film that unites every generation of “Toy Story” fans.

The film understands that modern technology doesn’t necessarily cause bullying, but enables it, and doesn’t necessarily make kids anti-social, but normalizes it.

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