The trend isn’t good for Irish animator Nora Twomey. After riding a wave of goodwill co-directing THE SECRET OF KELLS/’09 at Cartoon Saloon with Thomm Moore (who wouldn’t root for a small Irish animation outfit taking on Hollywood's giants?*), she went on her own with THE BREADWINNER/’17, both films worthy but underwhelming. But neither prepares you for this sorrowful hodgepodge, a mess of a fantasy from Ruth Stiles Gannett’s popular mid-20th Century book about Elmer, a positive-thinking lad (presumably in Depression Era America*) who moves to the big impersonal city after Mom loses their small town grocery. It’s tough going in the city, but luckily a stray cat starts speaking! But only to Elmer. And this leads to further adventures out at sea, landing on a wild island populated entirely by animals and run by apes in various sizes along with a magical dragon who needs a confidence boost that only Elmer is able to provide. Some of the animation is fun to look at, the flat graphics of the prologue has a certain picturebook charm to it, but the fantasy elements don’t line up in a memorable way while the All-Star vocal cast proves surprisingly distracting. NetFlix apparently kept this one strictly as a streamer so no idea if it caught on or not. Maybe it just worked better on the page. Gannett did write two sequels.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: *Of the Cartoon Saloon releases, Thomm Moore’s SONG OF THE SEA/’14 is the most satisfying. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2015/06/song-of-sea-2014.html LINKs for Twomey’s other films: https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2011/02/secret-of-kells-2009.html https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/06/th-breadwinner-2017.html
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *The period is left vague, but still odd to notice over-the-shoulder seat belts when Mom & Son drive into town.
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