Flow

Flow was watched early from a screener. It is being released in Seattle on December 6th, 2024.

Who doesn’t love a good animal adventure? This one is about a cat (none of these animals have an actual name in the movie, but, my own kid referred to the cat as Felix, so now you have to know that as well). This cat likes to chill by itself, and eat fish that some dogs have fished up, quite rudely. The area has no humans at all, but there is a house of a woodcarver, who really loved cats. Maybe it was this one? So there are several cat statues around, some quite large.

And…then a flood happens! A large flood, with the water keep growing, and growing, and growing.

Well, the cat doesn’t like water, and is a bad swimmer, but thankfully…a small sailboat appears nearby and saves it! And it has a Capybara in it? What the hell is a capybara doing steering a boat? Will it eat the cat? Better to be in the boat, than in the water. Soon, other animals join the boat, a whole misfit crew situation, as they try to navigate this flooded world, with food scarcity, not much land, and shiny baubles.

There is not enough pro-Capybara media out there. There is not enough anti-Capybara media out there, either. Where is all of the Capybara media??

Flow feels like a cutscene of a PlayStation 2 video game, and a short turned feature length film, all in the best ways. It is Cel-shaded, but also, something else? It reminded me about the short Paper-man, sort of. A highly stylized art style that was unique, and maybe still a little old and retro, while clearly being better than the technology 25 years ago.

What the animation did was allow the film to be looked at with curiosity and pleasure. The other aspect that should be highly touted (And again, reminiscent of an animated short), was that it had no dialogue. These weren’t talking cartoon animals, they are just regular cartoon animals, trying to live their animal lives in a world that seemingly was abandoned by humans. I love me a no dialogue film, if it works for the plot and story, which this one absolutely does. The story we can tell through their interactions. The story of what happened to the humans can only be guessed and theorized, which is itself fun. And the story of how these animals learn to co-exist and try to survive in their new environment is one worth seeing.

I think Flow is an animated film that takes risks, and in a year where there are some big budget releases that realize they can put out lesser products, and still make bags full of money, it is great when these smaller films show that the genre (animated) is one still worthy of your time.