“Arco” Looks to the Future Through Climate Grief

What if rainbows in the sky were not the leftovers from a recent storm but instead visitors from the future? As we entered the hindsight is 20/20 phase of humanity’s climate crisis, time travel to try to mend what is broken looked wistfully appealing.

As I sat sobbing through the credits of “Arco,” director Ugo Bienvenu’s animated visionary film courtesy of The California Film Institute, the sparring emotions of hope and doom ping ponged around the room at large. “Arco” showed an oddly cheerful future where the earth was no longer habitable, and humans lived in self-sustaining, idyllic colonies in the clouds. The people of the future could time-travel and did so to collect long extinct plant specimens in hopes of replenishing the earth.

The animated style, landscapes, and aura felt as if they were descended from Hayao Miyazaki’s world. The humans of the future flew on the wind in technicolor rainbow suits, diamonds glinting on their foreheads, their eyes an otherworldly blue gray. Arco, voiced by Juliano Krue Valdi, was a boy who lived with his family in one of these homes and wished to go with them to see a dinosaur. Unfortunately, he was too young. In a fit of defiance, he stole his sister’s cape and took flight, only to land in the year 2075.

In this not so distant future, humans still lived on earth in comfortable homes. However, each home was protected by domes from extreme weather conditions like storms and raging wildfires. Children lived in homes absent of parents. They were cared for by robots, and their parents appeared only as ghostly holograms, working away from their children in distant cities. This might have been the most upsetting part of the film for me as I watched a world racing toward its own demise with the very technology it created to make life better for all.

After his fall to earth, Arco met Iris, voiced by Romy Fay, a girl struggling her way through a world destroyed by previous generations. She immediately felt an affinity for Arco and decided to help him find a way home. All the while, the pair had to dodge a trio of primary colored conspiracy theorists voiced by Will Ferrell, Andy Samberg, and Flea. They claimed to have seen rainbows like Arco’s once before and had been hoping to prove that time travelers existed ever since.

Though the message of the film shows hope but only after humanity has already doomed itself, “Arco” manages to offer warmth rather than despair. It serves as a warning that current actions could and do have long term effects on our children and their offspring. The story manages to surprise and while the film leans heavily on the visual signifiers of Miyazaki and nostalgic films like “E.T.”, “Arco” manages to morph into an entity all its own. The story reminds us that humanity, at its best, can always find a way to band together and repair, for the love of one another and the earth itself. “Arco” inspired dreams of a better future and feels like exactly the film needed for this moment.

You can watch “Arco” beginning January 30, 2026 at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema.

California Film Institute has a full schedule coming up. You can check out their schedule here.

On March 15, 2026 they will be holding a party to Celebrate the 98th Academy Awards. All proceeds will go to benefit CAFILM Education.