'Chicken for Linda!' review: Don't miss this gorgeously animated culinary quest | 0Z6K46R | 2024-04-09 10:08:01
Hen For Linda! is an immaculate snowball of a movie, as what begins as a younger woman's wish to eat a hen dinner shortly spirals into an sudden adventure.
Here, stolen poultry, pantless cops, and madcap chases by means of Paris await, together with some of 2024's most unforgettable animation. Between pops of colour and slapstick comedy, directors Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach craft a touching mother-daughter story about how even the only issues can unearth long-buried reminiscences — and all the emotions that come with them.
Hen For Linda! understands how "small" tales can nonetheless have big stakes.
As its title suggests, Hen For Linda! (Linda veut du poulet! in the unique French) is all about getting eight-year-old Linda (voiced by Mélinée Leclerc) some hen. It's her one want when her mom Paulette (Clotilde Hesme) needs to make amends after an unfair punishment: She simply needs to eat hen with peppers, a dish her late father Giulio (voiced by Pietro Sermonti) used to make. All Paulette needs to do is safe the components and prepare dinner the meal.
On the floor, Hen For Linda!'s premise seems fairly simple, even if you throw a basic strike into the combination that makes it inconceivable for Paulette to buy groceries. But Malta and Laudenbach add layer after layer of emotional depth to Paulette and Linda's journey, to the point that even an on a regular basis act like buying hen becomes a quest surprisingly rooted in love and grief.
That emotional depth all starts with the movie's opening shot: A wedding ring ensconced in a green bubble twirls into view while Giulio delivers a voiceover about memory. The depths of our memory, he says, are like a black night time, where forgotten moments wait to be rediscovered. Other colourful bubbles pop into view: reminiscences of Paulette educating child Linda the names of every of her fingers, of Linda entranced by the shiny great thing about Paulette's wedding ceremony ring, of Giulio serving hen with peppers to his family. Instantly, Giulio's bubble shrinks, then disappears altogether. The other comply with go well with, until all we're left with is a bubble of a crying baby Linda towards a backdrop as black as night time.
Years later, Paulette's wedding ceremony ring becomes some extent of rivalry between her and Linda, as she believes Linda has traded it at college for a brand new beret. Her anger on the loss prompts a tough slap and a punishing go to to Linda's irritated Aunt Astrid (voiced by Laetitia Dosch), but none of that compares to the guilt Paulette feels when she realizes she was fallacious. (The family cat Gazza was the wrongdoer all alongside!) Linda's request for hen and peppers turns into not just a method for her to attach with the daddy she barely remembers, however a means for Paulette to atone for the ache she brought on her baby as nicely. Whilst Linda begins to lose herself within the joy of her and her mother's hunt for hen all through Paris, Paulette stays dogged in her willpower to prepare dinner this meal and salvage her relationship together with her daughter.
In fact, the meal itself brings its personal share of luggage with it. Hen and peppers was the last meal Giulio ever cooked for Linda and Paulette, who now principally cooks up microwave meals. In a single heartbreaking scene, Paulette pores over Giulio's recipe guide — making sure to blow the dust off its cover first — and struggles to include her feelings when she comes across the directions she needs. It is just considered one of many moments of empathy Hen For Linda! has for Paulette, proving that although Linda's identify is within the title, it is simply as much her mom's story as it is hers.
Hen For Linda! is nonstop enjoyable.
</div> With all these stakes in place, Malta and Laudenbach hold even Hen For Linda!'s most absurd escapades rooted in Paulette's makes an attempt to reconnect with Linda, and in Linda's hopes to reconnect with Giulio by means of her faint memory of the last meal they shared. If anything, these emotions make the movie's absurdity attain even greater comedic heights, a feat helped alongside even more by Hen For Linda!'s (actually) colorful ensemble.
Each of Hen For Linda!'s adult characters are an enthralling bundle of contradictions. Paulette berates Linda for being a thief, solely to steal a hen from a farm minutes later. Aunt Astrid is a yoga instructor who encourages her class to remain peaceable, whilst she scarfs down sweet to placate the unbridled rage she feels every time Paulette asks her for one thing. Truck driver Jean-Michel (voiced by Patrick Pineau) becomes instantly smitten with Paulette after she and Linda stow away in his truck. He is so smitten that he provides to assist them put together their hen dinner — despite the fact that he is allergic to hen.
Rounding out the forged are Linda and her group of pals, whose childlike marvel within the face of this grand hunt for hen and peppers marks a stark contrast from the principally careworn adults. They seem to be a pleasant bunch, particularly since Hen For Linda! allows them to be grubby and silly and even a tad morbid. I do not know what made me chuckle extra: Youngsters shaking down a automotive to hinder a police investigation, or Linda debating how greatest to kill a hen. Positive, it's darkish, however it feels exactly like the sort of pleasure a wild baby would have when making hen and peppers from scratch.
Hen For Linda! is a hand-painted marvel.
</div> Part of why the youngsters in Hen For Linda! are a lot enjoyable stems from the movie's animation, which locations us in a childlike viewpoint because of its hand-painted, virtually doodle-esque animation. Vibrant blocks of colour construct environments, mild, and shadow, while each character will get a colour of their own. Black strains hint out features on each character's face and physique, however Hen For Linda! shuns over-detailing in favor of extra impressionistic work. Should you ever tire of Disney and Pixar's current CG work that strives for realism, one watch of Hen For Linda! will remind you of the versatility of animation.
Hen For Linda!'s animation particularly shines through the movie's musical sequences. These aren't massive song-and-dance numbers, however fairly fantasies that convey us deep into characters' minds. One near-lullaby details how arduous it can be for folks to sleep, whereas an Astrid-centric music brings us on a candy-coated stroll via the celebs. Elsewhere, a key number well makes use of shade blocking to evoke the whole lot from spotlights to film projection, all within the service of analyzing reminiscence.
Every track takes Hen For Linda!'s animated playfulness to the acute, but the whole film is filled with moments that reaffirm the facility of 2D, hand-painted films. Take the reminiscence bubbles that open the film. They seem to be a easy concept, however Hen For Linda! executes them in a approach that is directly visually partaking and impossibly shifting. Actually, they're only a small-scale illustration of the movie's general aim: Taking a simple story about dinner and elevating it to pleasant and sudden places, greater than earning that exclamation level on the finish of its title along the best way.
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