Ouch....this one really hits home with me.
After his masterpiece on Mary and Max, Adam Elliot comes back with another wonderful, beautiful, and humane animated movie that explores sibling bonding ship, hardships, complex life, and society.
Filled with weird but interesting claymation designs, Elliot approaches on the narrative, tone and atmosphere, on a more darker level compared to his previous work. Exploring the dark aspects of society, while still remaining joyful, touching and emotional. Elliot's approach to the animation, characters, and themes are well-explored and thus creating a great character study of a piece. Being focused more on the complex of society and how characters are forced to deal with their surroundings and environment.
Many of the voice performances are fantastic. As I mentioned, many of the characters are well-explored as you feel engaged with the characters and connect with them on an emotional level. What I love about Elliot's work is that he uses animation and character engagement in a unique way. Most animator's usually tend to focus on traditional approaches but Elliot explores more human and serious, as if this is what a real life experience is.
With the writing, the dialogue is great, the soundtrack is good, and many of the themes and emotional elements really hit hard. I haven't felt this emotionally connected with an animated movie since Wolfwalkers, where a movie I genuinely cared about the characters and really feel for them.
Unfortunately, I have a good feeling this movie won't be discussed a lot due to the heavy subject it explores and adult animation is rarely appreciated from the general medium. But, for sure, this is one of the best movies of 2024.
