PLOT SUMMARY: An autistic boy makes an unlikely friend that manifests through mobile phones and tablets. It is up to his mother to save her son from this obsessive friend.
There was a time when people evaluated themselves over the number of friends they have. Those who had none were thought to be living in despair.
Then came the internet and then social media, and people who had friends in real life wanted to be popular online too.
It didn’t matter if they were actually hanging out with their friends in real life what mattered was how many likes they could garner from their online friends.
It has become a common sight to see teens especially, looking down at their phones rather than living the moment with their friends.
Those who didn’t have friends in real life found solace in online apps where they made friends.
Now that the internet is here, not many people are lonely anymore, are they?
Come Play touches upon a story of an autistic boy called Oliver. He doesn’t have any friends because of his condition and he does his talking using an app. His mother Sarah is the only one who shows interest in his life unlike his father Marty who works as a parking attendant and growing distant from his wife.
But Come Play is also about Spongebob Squarepants. It is about how you can market a franchise using a movie. In fact, you won’t pay much attention to the movie. All you’ll notice is the Spongebob Squarepants merchandise available. It is only in the third act of the movie when Spongebob is finally sidelined so the movie can reach its climax.
COME PLAY Movie Plot
When we meet Oliver we see his dependence on apps to converse or entertain him. His parents are too busy sorting their internal issues. At school, he requires an assistant to help him with his studies. His classmates make fun of him and demand he too not be allowed to use cellphones since they aren’t allowed to.
Later, Mateo comes to him and asks him to join him and others. Oliver goes alone to the field only to be pushed by Byron who tossed his phone away. Then again, Byron was only talking before Oliver called him ugly. Still, Byron shouldn’t have thrown Oliver’s only means of communication.
Sarah arrives home to tell her husband how worried she was when she couldn’t find Oliver. She tries to get him to talk but he can’t. She pushes the therapist to get him talking but she advises Oliver would take his time.
But Oliver doesn’t just lose his phone. There was someone living on that phone who wasn’t too pleased Oliver was being bullied. He decides to follow Oliver using other devices.
At work, Marty experiences a strange occurrence before liking into the lost and found to find a tablet. People park their cars and then leave their expensive tablets around and then for days, don’t retrieve it or ask about it because it isn’t like all these devices connect everything you do to a cloud which mostly contains your sensitive information. Nope.
Or maybe the tab belonged to a spoilt kid who wanted to toss away their iPad because it had one scratch on it and wanted their parents to buy them a new one. Who knows?
Anyway, Marty takes it to his son and becomes an instant hero in his eyes. Sarah isn’t too pleased because she thinks she’s the only parent who is doing the disciplining around here.
Oliver immediately turns it on and lucky for him the iPad is fully charged. He doesn’t take time to sign in or set up the iPad. It is ready to go and the first thing he uses is the camera app with the funny filters. He twirls and makes faces at it until he notices the app detecting another face behind him. A smaller face.
Oliver doesn’t turn on the light to check out what it could be. He’s perfectly content playing in the dark. The app then lights up with a story titled “Misunderstood Monsters”. Oliver has no choice but to read it because it gets stuck on his tab. There’s no author name, publishing info, etc.
The story is about Larry, a lanky monster with glowing red eyes who lurks around. We have to assume Larry wrote the book. He warns that the reader must complete the book but then doesn’t give them an opportunity to do so. He keeps flickering the lights and distracting the reader. Does he really expect people to read in the dark? Hopefully, Oliver is using night mode. Nevertheless, Larry creates so much distraction with the flickering and crackling lights that Oliver doesn’t finish the book even though it’s pretty much one sentence per page. In horror movies, the last page is read, well, at the end.
Oliver screams, Sarah pacifies him. The therapist advises Sarah to help get Oliver friends so he can make more progress with his speech issues. Sarah calls her friend Jennifer who is Byron’s mother. They arrange a sleepover and Byron invites Mateo and Zach too.
The boys go to sleep but are bothered by Oliver’s moaning. They want to do something fun so they find the iPad Oliver had hidden because he was afraid Larry might come out. Byron comes across Larry’s story and of course, LARRY doesn’t want him to read the story either. The lights go off one by one and just as Byron is showing off that he isn’t afraid of anything, Larry grabs him then pushes a table against him and pins him to the wall.
Jennifer is called but not Mateo or Zach’s parents. Zach points a finger at Oliver and says he hurt Byron.
Oliver maintains it wasn’t him but no one believes him. The next day at school, Byron doesn’t show up and his friends throw accusatory glances at Oliver who doesn’t participate in class. He retreats further into his shell.
Meanwhile, Larry is intent on throwing more scares around the house but still doesn’t let anyone finish a book about him. As Sarah is changing the lightbulbs around the house, the lights begin to flicker and she hears weird noises. When she returns to the living room, Larry has changed all the lightbulbs for Sarah. Marty points out later that Larry is pretty helpful to want to help Sarah with her chores to which she replies that she suspects Larry uses electricity to move around the house.
Sarah receives a call from Jennifer who tells her Byron has stopped talking. She goes to visit him and Oliver uses a clip from Spongebob to apologize to Byron. He finally speaks up much to Jennifer’s surprise and tells her that Oliver wasn’t the one who hurt him but it was Larry.
Of course, who is going to believe kids?
At school, Byron asks Oliver why he stopped being friends with him and refers to an incident where he punched him and later Sarah called Jennifer to say that Oliver didn’t want to be friends with Byron anymore.
Perhaps Sarah was embarrassed that her son could display sudden actions that would deem violent to other kids, or she was trying to protect her son from kids who wouldn’t understand autism. Or maybe Sarah herself was lonely and wanted Oliver’s company. Either way, Oliver is pissed off at her and keeps throwing his mother annoyed looks.
Marty, meanwhile, is at work when Larry pays him a visit. The book is almost finished at this point. Larry just wants a friend and will do anything to get one. But he’s misunderstood, according to the title of the book. He’s scaring and hurting people because his intentions are good. From his POV all these people in Oliver’s life haven’t been sympathetic to his condition. They don’t spend any time with him and lie to him all the time. He just wants to take Oliver to his world where he can give him a good life and his friendship.
But Marty doesn’t get to read the last page and is terrorized and injured enough to land in the hospital.
COME PLAY Ending Explained with spoilers!
That leaves Sarah and Oliver alone at home and they must now hide under the bed to escape Larry who is looking for light to draw energy from after all the devices have been trashed. It was a two-person job apparently. When Marty was still fine, Sarah and he took the phone and tablet outside to hammer it and apparently it took two people to do that...
Oliver gets nervous and Sarah hums the Spongebob song to calm him down. Spongebob Squarepants to the rescue!
Sarah and Oliver escape before Larry can take Oliver. The last page is read and it says that once Larry takes someone’s hand he will drag them into his world. Sarah takes Oliver to an open field where they think they are safe. But uh oh, it’s the same field from before when Byron threw Oliver’s phone somewhere. Sarah could have tried calling that phone before to look for it or use the “Find your phone” feature but nope. They had to leave it for the climax where Larry uses whatever charge is left on the phone to come to get Oliver.
Larry gives his hand to Oliver but it is Sarah who places her hand in his. Sarah decides she wants a friend since Oliver has already made friends with Byron and she hasn’t found any new friends yet. Better a monster friend than no one. Larry sucks her energy out and drags her away just as Oliver finally speaks.
In the end, Oliver has made more friends at school. Zach and Mateo want in on the secret pact where all those who have seen Larry have to be friends so that no one is lonely enough for Larry to prey on them.
Marty is sleeping one night when he hears sounds from downstairs. He goes to see Oliver laughing and playing with an invisible entity. He uses his phone camera to see it is Sarah dancing around with Oliver who then says she will always protect her son.
The movie did have a good concept but it is mostly jump scares that come from loud closing doors, etc.
And yes, it is mostly how Spongebob is the best friend you will ever have if you are ever feeling lonely.
Scare scale: 2.5/5
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