Oscar Nominees: Animated Feature

In recent years my husband and I have been going to the movies like it’s our job, but we typically skip most of the potential nominees for best animated feature. We don’t have anything against animated pics, but once our kids grew up, we stopped going out of our way to see them unless there was something new or special about them.

This year we actually saw all five of the animated feature nominees, partly because our 25-year-old daughter is currently living with us and she’s a fan of the genre. We saw the first two in the theater, the rest we streamed at home. I enjoyed all five of them and consider them worthy nominees. As I reflect on them now, I realize that they include fine examples of the use of animation to effectively address challenging subject matter.

Here are the nominees, in the order we saw them:

Inside Out 2

It’s been a while since I saw this one. I remember we watched the first Inside Out the night before to refresh our memories, and I was glad we did. Seeing the previous film made it clear that this was a better, more interesting film. Not that I didn’t like the first one, but the second had a more complex story and cooler animation. It also did a good job of highlighting the new emotions that come with adolescence. I loved how the portrayal of the new emotions – anxiety, envy, embarrassment, and ennui – had just the right balance between ridiculous and absolutely serious, because the emotions roused by the ravages of puberty fit into both categories.

I remember the animation as more impressive than I expected, showing texture and movement and color with what seemed to me to be new techniques. The consistency of colors and characters between the first and second movies was very good, but Inside Out 2 was an enjoyable improvement all around. But probably not the best animated film of the year.

The Wild Robot

When I saw the trailers for this movie, I wasn’t sure about how much I would like it. I was afraid it would over the top in some direction – maybe too much focus on robots or the environment, a bit like an updated Wall-E. Or sappy without much of an engaging story. But I knew it had great reviews, so when we went to see it I was hopeful.

For me the story got off to a bit of a slow start. It was visually interesting and pleasant enough, but I wasn’t quite believing it in the beginning (and some aspects of it did kind of remind me of Wall-E). But as Roz the robot got involved with the local wildlife, and especially when the flight training began for her adopted goose, I settled into the story. And it was an engaging story, taking me places I didn’t expect to go, mixing in a lot of great messages about working together and thinking about others more than yourself.

I appreciated the fact that the animation was kind of traditional, not trying to make the animals look like they’re almost real. It was colorful, creative, engaging. But overall, it seemed to me to be your standard, high-quality animated film – the type put out by major film companies every year. I enjoyed it. I even cried a bit. (My husband and I cry at movies more often than not. What can I say? We allow ourselves to enter the story.) From all I’ve read, this one is expected to win the Oscar, and if it does, then a hearty congratulations to all involved. It’s a well-made film with a positive message that’s not too heavy-handed, and it reached a lot of young people. I definitely don’t mind seeing a film like that win awards.

Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

I love Wallace and Gromit. My whole family loves Wallace and Gromit. I was so happy to hear my three-year-old grandson nearly overcome with laughter while watching The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. So of course there was no question that we would watch and enjoy this film. And once again the intrepid duo delivered a grand adventure of a tale, and I will no doubt watch it again.

I’m always impressed by the time and skill it takes to make a good stop-motion animated film and Nick Park and Aardman Animations have been putting in the time with great success for decades. I love what they produce and will always watch their films. Is this the best animated feature of the year? If Wallace and Gromit win – fabulous. Heck, I think they should get a lifetime achievement Oscar.

Memoir of a Snail

After watching this film, the word that came to mind over anything else was “unforgettable.” I have definitely never seen a film like it – animated or otherwise. So many potentially-life-destroying topics are explored here. I’m not even sure I can remember all of them but they include: physical deformity, death of parents, bullying, abusive foster parents, religious fanatacism, abusive partner, hoarding, playing with fire, obsession, homophobia, alcoholism, loneliness. And yet, I laughed out loud more than once. The humor was often pretty grim, but it was clever and genuinely funny. This film was also quite touching, portraying deep and loving relationships. (And yes, I did get a bit teary-eyed at one point.)

Throughout, I kept wondering if I would even watch a live-action film that explored so many tragic real-life topics and tried to make viewers laugh. And I’m pretty sure I would give such a film a miss. I doubt if I could take it. If this is the story that needs telling, stop-motion animation is a perfect format. It gives us some space to process what’s happening without being overwhelmed. We can take a break from the sadness and admire the dense and intricate set constructed from clay.

The animation was exceptional and did not pretend to be realistic. It was fabulous, cartoonish claymation. I want to say it was colorful, but that’s not quite true. There was a muted tone about the whole film that suited it perfectly. And there was so much detail – a believable and complete clay world. I would award the Oscar for best animated feature to this film because it uses excellent animation to venture into very difficult territory. It stands out among the nominees.

Flow

This lovely film is unique among the nominees in that it uses no words. An international film that requires no subtitles. The animals in the starring roles are not pretending to be anything else, so they can’t talk. They can do a lot of surprising things, but they can’t talk.

Flow takes us on a wild boat ride with an unlikely crew of animals. A catastrophic flood hits a world that is filled with wildlife, but appears to be post-human. Plenty of manmade structures, but no people. Cat is our main character, who scrambles onto a passing boat just as the waters rise above the chance of any foothold – even for a cat.

There’s a capybara already onboard. The animals give each other a sniff and float off together. Things get a little crazy when a flock of secretarybirds fly over and the cat falls overboard, but is saved by a very interesting-looking whale. A bit later on, the capybara invites a ring-tailed lemur with a basket of trinkets to join them. Then a Labrador who was previously friendly to Cat joins as well. During a brief stay on land, a hostile flock of secretarybirds go after the little group, but one stands up for them and ends up injured and unable to fly. Naturally, the bird joins the crew.

The action and adventure in the film is nonstop and very entertaining. The animated world is lush and beautiful and always in motion. It reminded us a bit of the graphics for the 1993 video game Myst. It’s hard to pin down just where in the world the action is happening – sometimes looks like Europe, sometimes like Southeast Asia. That may be part of the point of the film – a story about acceptance and cooperation, finding ways to communicate and work together to get through difficult situations, no matter where you are or who you are. And in telling that story, it succeeds beautifully. It would be nice if it won.