Flow

Like its central cat, Flow has overcome immense odds and created huge chatter.

Critical acclaim, awards (including the Best Animated Film Oscar), lots of conversation around its miniscule budget, statues in its home country of Latvia and, now, an extended cinema run because of demand.

All of the above is fully deserved.

This is a truly original, truly moving, layered and beautiful film.

Very much not a film for children (although they may also love it) it is effectively a silent movie as we follow a little gang of different animals marooned on a boat during an apocalyptic flood.

The Biblical and climate change allegories are there but very much a sideshow to its central message of the need to get along despite our apparent differences.

It’s also just a genuinely exciting and cute (but not cutesy) animal story.

Made using free software, the animation isn’t aiming for realism or even Disney-esque cartoonery.

Instead, the landscapes and changing weather and seas of this pseudo-mystical world are rendered beautifully with the animal characters presented more simply, almost like an old arcade videogame.

The focus can, therefore, fully be on the expressions of the animals and once your eyes adjust to this style they really come to life.

The combination of these expressive faces and real animal sounds used make you care deeply for our little squad. You’ll laugh and cry as the story progresses.

That story is told magically. The lack of dialogue doesn’t matter a jot and the use of the camera is simply jaw-dropping.

Utilising ‘one shots’ and a bobbing and weaving lens it mimics a live action film to stunning effect. If the animals weren’t so damn adorable it’d be the best thing about the film.

There’s not much more to divulge and it won’t be to all tastes but for those curious, for those animal lovers, for those animation fans (particularly anyone partial to Studio Ghibli) or for those movie buffs who admire a film’s creation, this is an absolute masterpiece.

A triumph of against-the-odds filmmaking as well as articulating that struggle in the film itself.

Flow’s cat is the character of the year.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️