Papaya (2026) Movie Drinking Game
Take a Drink: for every new friend
Take a Drink: for every return to the skies
Take a Drink: for environmental messages
Do a Shot: Capybara!
By: Henry J. Fromage (Two Beers) –
As of late, every year has felt like a banner year for overseas animated film, even leaving aside traditional giants in the medium like Japan.
Papaya hails from Brazil, and follows a little papaya seed as, set free from her mother fruit, she experiences the world and finds her purpose.
A Toast
This dialogue-free (all grunts and sighs and sound effects) animated film is as colorful as it comes, full of eye-pleasing primary shapes and colors to assist in the certainly unique story it’s trying to tell. You’ll also find yourself knee-tapping along to the jaunty musical design with a bit of Brazilian flair, particularly in more energetic ‘action’ sequences.
Things just get a tad more serious when our little papaya seed floats from the jungle into the world of Man, encountering factory farms and pollution as she goes. This section will impart some good if at times metaphorically confusing (should we not eat vegetables? is it normal to trash entire trees after a single fruit harvest?) lessons on the young’uns. I also enjoyed the bug-filled trashy nightclub vibes of the city and the trippy slug drug-induced hallucination sequence, though- not enough children’s movies have drug trips.
Beer Two
Okay, I was not the biggest fan of the opening scene depicting all the papaya seeds as babies suckling the inner papaya fruit’s teats. It’s… an odd way to portray that. Ditto the mother tree tearing up as its breast-like fruits explode as a birth metaphor.
Beer Three
Beyond the bizarre and probably not Bill Nye the Science Guy-compliant nature of the anthropomorphization, I admit this clearly small children demo-targeting project was all a bit too cutesy for me a bit longer than I could handle (although it does eventually find room for some conflict). I could see the two year old in your life being enraptured by it, though.
Verdict
Papaya is an imaginative, brightly colored cartoon from Brazil steeped in environmentalism and pleasant vibes that’s sure to entertain young children.
