Michael's Movie Grade: B
A well-made but rushed animated biopic.
The brilliant French animation director Sylvain Chomet's new film tells the story of the life of filmmaker and playwright Marcel Pagnol. The result is a good movie, even if it doesn't reach the heights of the director/writer's previous work.
Like all of Sylvain Chomet's work, this film is a visual treat. His signature visual style is all over this movie. You can recognize one of this director's films by looking at one single frame and his unique style works perfectly for this film. Every single frame is simply lovely to look at.
This movie is also very entertaining with much of the filmmaker's wit and creativity throughout. The comedic moments are quite funny, and the whimsical moments feel magical. The dialogue is smart crisp and intelligently written. All of this works towards this movie's main charm. It fully captures a love and passion for film and theater in a way that fully captures our imaginations.
This movie does have a major problem though. That is that the hour and a half runtime is too short for a biopic. Because of this the story can often feel very rushed and supporting characters are rarely fleshed out. The scenes about the main character's romantic life especially fell flat because we never got to know anything about any of his love interests.
All in all the things that work are so well done that they overcome any of the movie's flaws.
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