Movie review
August 21, 2020 · 93 min · PG
Woke Score
Lower is better
Review
The movie keeps pushing the anti-captivity message and animal freedom the whole way through. The animals hatch an escape plan from the mall circus, Stella dies from neglect, and public protest shuts down the circus so they can go to a zoo habitat. Animal welfare activism drives the entire story engine with recurring sermons on humans exploiting animals for profit and entertainment. No identity themes, no gender politics, and no queer elements appear.
Breakdown
These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for The One and Only Ivan.
Woke representation / casting
Natural voice casting for CGI animals (Sam Rockwell, Angelina Jolie, Brooklynn Prince, etc.) with mixed actors; no audience-visible forced diversity, signaling, or story-world mismatches.
Woke political dialogue
Light lines on captivity being wrong and animals deserving freedom; fully story-appropriate with no modern activist identity rhetoric.
Identity-driven story themes
None; narrative is 100% about animal friendship, memory, and escape with zero race/gender/queer arcs.
Western institutional / cultural critique
Mild activist-style push against commercial animal captivity in circuses/malls for profit; remains setting-appropriate resistance in an animal story without modern identity politics, capitalism-as-whiteness, or Western cultural institutional attacks.
Woke character or canon changes
Not relevant
Anti-woke backlash and complaints
Absent; zero evidence of backlash claiming too woke or identity agendas (only pro-animal-rights praise from groups like PETA, which carries no weight here).
Creator track record context
Writer Mike White has animal-rights themes in past work; Angelina Jolie brings general activism; supports the welfare focus but no relevant identity-driven woke pattern cited.
Production
