Flora & Ulysses | 2021 | PG | – 1.3.1

Why is “Flora & Ulysses” rated PG? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “some mild action and thematic elements.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a kiss, a near kiss and a hug, several cat attacks ending with bloody slash marks, many scenes of physical danger including what seems to be the death of a squirrel, a fall from a tree house, a fall from a roof, an animal control officer shoots tranquilizer darts in several scenes hitting a man and a squirrel, some scenes of property damage, and some mild language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

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When a 10-year old cynic (Matilda Lawler) senses hope slipping away, a magical encounter with a squirrel transforms her life into a bonafide superhero adventure. Also with Alyson Hannigan, Ben Schwartz, Anna Deavere Smith, Danny Pudi, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, Kate Micucci, Bobby Moynihan and the voice of John Kassir. Directed by Lena Khan. [Running Time: 1:35]

Flora & Ulysses SEX/NUDITY 1

 – A husband and his wife kiss romantically. A man and a woman lean toward each other to kiss and they are interrupted by a cat meowing. A husband and his wife (they are separated) hug awkwardly. A boy suffering from temporary blindness asks a girl if he can feel her face to see what she looks like. We hear that a woman is a romance novelist.
► A woman wears tops and dresses that reveal cleavage in several scenes. A voice-over talks about the Silver Surfer being “completely naked” and we see a drawing of the character with the outline of his buttocks.

Flora & Ulysses VIOLENCE/GORE 3

 – A cat attacks a man and the man spins around screaming, the cat scratches him and bites him, crawls under his shirt and pops out through the shirt snarling and hissing like the alien in “Alien”; the man throws the cat into a swimming pool and it leaps out onto the man (we see bloody scratches on the man’s face), he pins it to the ground and puts it in a crate where it bites the man’s finger and he says, “It hit bone.”
► A robotic vacuum speeds around a backyard with a woman running after it yelling, “Runaway vacuum,” until the woman and a young girl trap the machine, it speeds past them saying, “Evolving,” and sucks up a squirrel before stopping; the girl takes the squirrel out of the vacuum, it falls limp, she gives it chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and the animal revives. A squirrel is shot with a tranquilizer dart, a man picks it up and runs, he is tackled by an animal control officer and the squirrel it put in a crate and taken away as the officer says that it will be euthanized to test its brain tissue for rabies (a young girl falls to her knees and cries). A squirrel leaps through the air in a donut shop, a man tries to hit it with a napkin holder and it jumps again landing in a woman’s hair causing her to scream and spin around; the squirrel jumps again and spins on a donut display throwing food around the shop and splattering on people; the squirrel, a girl and a man run outside where the sign is knocked off the building and a large donut sign rolls off the roof. A young girl on a bicycle is struck in the head by a soccer ball and she falls off her bike and onto the ground (we do not see injuries but she grunts). A boy breaks through a board in a tree house and falls, a squirrel grabs and holds him briefly, then lets him go and the boy falls to the ground where he says, “No broken bones.” An animal control officer shoots a man in the hand with a tranquilizer dart and the man loses feeling in his hand while driving a car with manual controls; the man swerves on the road trying to shift gears and nearly runs head on into a truck until the car is steered off the road and into some shrubs (no one is injured). A man reverses a car out of a driveway and the door is pulled off when it is still open and hits a pole. A man is attacked off-screen by a cat; we hear the cat screech and the man yell.
► A young girl bumps into a store display and it tips knocking over game tables during a tournament and the participants are distraught when their progress is lost; one figure holding a sword is shown with a donut impaled on the sword and red jelly drips out onto the table. A squirrel is bumped by a swinging metal ball and it falls into a basket (there are no injuries). A squirrel is nearly struck by a rolling roller skate. A squirrel becomes wrapped up in sticky flypaper and falls off a desk, but is caught by the paper and dangles as if it is flying. A metal bucket crashes through a plate glass window, knocks a chandelier off the ceiling and crashes onto a table of food splattering people seated around the table; the table then breaks and falls on the floor. People run and scream when they see a skunk in an animal clinic.
► An animal control officer loads and takes target practice with stun darts; he misses the target and hits a can of soda and other items around a room. An animal control officer talks about squirrels and rabies and searches for a squirrel that caused a disturbance in a restaurant. An angry cat chases a man and a girl and they get into a building before the cat lunges at them (we see it splat against a glass door and slide down leaving claw marks). An angry cat attacks an animal control officer in an animal clinic. Several people break into an animal clinic trying to find a squirrel; they release animals from their cages and staff chase them and try to stop the humans, several squirrels jump on an officer and a woman punches him in the face, a man puts a squirrel in a vacuum tube and it is transported to another part of the building where a girl takes him out unharmed, and an officer shoots a man in the leg with tranquilizer darts, and then in the neck and the back and the man limps across a roof and falls over the side (he does not hit the ground). A man looks panicked when he sees many squirrels climbing trees in a forest; he says, “So much rabies.”
► A young boy talks about his father and that he died. A young girl and a boy walk along a road and thunder rumbles and a storm moves in; they hide in an abandoned water park. A boy talks about taking revenge on his stepfather and says, “I pushed his car in a lake.” A man and a boy tell an animal control office that a squirrel is dead. A man pretends to be using a remote control to control the behavior of an employee when he is reprimanding him in a store; the employee says, “I quit,” and the boss says, “You’re fired.” We meet a young boy and are told that he is suffering from temporary blindness brought on by stress. We hear that a young girl’s father moved out of the house. A man bemoans getting a 3% employee discount from a store where he works and he says, “It’s way better than healthcare.” A woman says that she must “Suffer for her art.” A young girl talks about superheroes and that they typically and inadvertently hurt innocent people and regret it afterwards. A newspaper article describes a novelist as being in a slump. A woman takes a squirrel to a forest to leave it there and get it away from her daughter. A man talks about an encounter with a rattlesnake.
► A boy falls over a fence, through a vent and bumps into a door; we hear a thud each time, as he says, “No broken bones.” A squirrel hides in a box when a young girl tells it that her mother would hit it with a pan and states, “That’s what happened to my hamster.” We hear that a boy fell out of a car after the door was pulled off (no injuries are seen).
► A man asks his young daughter if a squirrel’s mouth was clean when she gave it mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and she says, “Probably not.” A voice-over talks about Wolverine needing to avoid picking his nose. A squirrel eats a pop-tart and drips jelly on a pillow a couple of times; he tries to cover the spots up by stepping on them. A squirrel eats from a bag of cheese balls and we see its cheeks stuffed full, and crumbs on a typewriter, its whiskers and a table. We see a newspaper article about a ranger having been demoted. A man spits out coffee when he sees something in a newspaper.

Flora & Ulysses LANGUAGE 1

 – Name-calling (psychotic cat, weird, hopeless, crazy guy in jammies, dummies), exclamations (holy bagumba, holy unanticipated occurrences, oh boy, dang it, oh dang it, what the…), 6 religious exclamations (Holy Bagumba, Holy Unanticipated Occurrences, God, Holy). | profanity glossary |

Flora & Ulysses SUBSTANCE USE

 – A woman tells her husband that she is afraid their young daughter (she’s 10 years old) is doing drugs. A woman drinks from a glass that could be filled with wine.

Flora & Ulysses DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Hope, observation, purpose, superheroes, divorce, losing one’s creative spark, injustice, romance, magic, wonder, doubt, cynics, skeptics, courage, loneliness, friendship, failure.

Flora & Ulysses MESSAGE

 – Hope can get in the way of action. The world is filled with wonder.