Review-Flow

Animated animals have rarely looked this good.

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I’m continuing my catch up of Oscar nominated movies and with Flow landing on Max over the weekend, I figured it was time to check it out. I had been looking forward to this film since I first saw some of the footage and images back last fall and it did NOT disappoint.

Every frame of Flow looks absolutely stunning and the film is equally comfortable with fast movie action as steady, contemplative shots.

There have been a few movies over the last several years that have changed the way I look at the animated feature genre. Think Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, The Mitchells vs. the Machines, and Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio. These film all proved that you don’t have to deliver high gloss animation like we see in most Disney and Pixar films in order to be a great animated film. Don’t get me wrong, I love most of the Pixar and Disney films, and you can include the Illumination, Dreamworks Animation, and more in that group. But for the most part, the films put out by these big studios are formulaic and usually part of a series (I’m looking at you Toy Story 4, Despicable Me 4, Hotel Transylvania 4, and Kung Fu Panda 4).

And this is why Flow was such a breath of fresh air. Directed by Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis, the film follows the life of a solitary cat whose home is destroyed in a massive flood. He must leave his place of comfort and venture into the unknown, eventually trusting in the aid of a friendly capybara who invites the cat on his boat, a curious lemur intent on bringing his hoard of bobbles with him, a friendly canine separated from his pack, and a motherly secretarybird.¹ These animals only “speak” in their native languages of meows, purrs, grunts, squawks, chirps, and barks, but the best part about the film is that you intuitively understand what they are saying without the need to have celebrity voice actors give them humans sounding words.