Love is an empowering feeling. Just how powerful a sentiment it is, is depicted in the children’s book “The Velveteen Rabbit” by Margery Williams.
In the book, the Velveteen Rabbit longs to become real, which is what happens when someone “really” loves you, the Skin Horse, his nursery room toy counterpart, tells the rabbit. The rabbit’s wish comes true as the young boy in the tale comes to love the Velveteen Rabbit so much that his fur is worn off, and he becomes shabbier and shabbier. However, after the young boy becomes sick with scarlet fever, the rabbit must be burned along with all the blankets and whatever else the boy had been in close contact. But, because the boy had “really” loved the Velveteen Rabbit so much, he becomes real and joins the other live rabbits in the forest.
Love makes us real is Williams’ message.
The film “The Velveteen Rabbit,” released on DVD this week, inspired by the book and directed by Michael Landon Jr., takes this message about how important love is to another level by creating characters-Toby Morgan’s grandmother and father-who have trouble expressing this emotion because of past tragedies in their lives, including the death of Toby’s mother, and showing their transformation as Toby affects them by his wish to be shown love by the two.
The movie is a mixture of live action/animation, which is done quite well. Malibu resident Jane Seymour plays the voice of Sarah, Toby’s mother, and Emmy Award actor Tom Skerritt plays the voice of the toy character Horse, and Oscar winning actress Ellen Burstyn is the voice of Swan. Matthew Harbour is quite effective in the role of Toby, especially in the wrenching, ending scene of the movie when Rabbit, in a bag, is thrown onto a woodpile to be burned and Toby yells out as his father restrains him, “I love you Rabbit! I really, really love you!”
Rabbit, of course, becomes real and hops away to safety.
The message that love makes you “real” is wonderfully adapted, and imparted by the directing, animation and acting, especially that of Harbour.