Babe

Rating

Director

Chris Noonan

Screenplay

George Miller, Chris Noonan (Novel: Dick King-Smith)

Length

1h 31m

Starring

Christine Cavanaugh, Miriam Margolyes, Danny Mann, Hugo Weaving, Miriam Flynn, Russie Taylor, Evelyn Krape, Michael Edward-Stevens, Charles Bartlett, Paul Livingston, Roscoe Lee Browne, James Cromwell, Magda Szubanski

MPAA Rating

G

Review

The story of a young pig who wants to be a sheep herder brings to life a popular children’s book in Babe, a film about being yourself in the face of skepticism and ridicule.

Director Chris Noonan co-wrote the screen adaptation of Doug Mitchell’s novel The Sheep-Pig alongside inventive filmmaker George Miller. Their creation is a warm, compassionate, and endearing tale of an orphaned pig named Babe (voiced by Christine Cavanaugh) who finds purpose on Farmer Hoggett’s (James Cromwell) ranch by learning to herd sheep. Over the course of the film, Babe learns myriad lessons about the relationship between man and animals, but also comes to understand that it isn’t who you are on the outside that matters, but who you are on the inside. Powered with that knowledge, Babe becomes more than the pig he was born as.

Although the humans cannot understand what the animals have to say, all of the creatures can speak to one another. Rather than turning this into an animated tale like Charlotte’s Web, the producers and director decided to make this entirely live action using revolutionary visual effects to make the animals speak. Cavanaugh is wonderful as Babe, but is given strong support from the other barnyard critters we are introduced to including Miriam Margolyes as Fly, Babe’s surrogate mother, a sheepdog; Hugo Weaving as Hoggett’s former herding dog Rex; Miriam Flynn as the elder ewe leading the farmer’s sheep; Russi Taylor as the Hoggett’s vindictive cat Duchess; and Danny Mann as Ferdinand, a duck who crows like a rooster to wake the farm.

As their human counterparts, Magda Szubanski isn’t given a lot to do as Farmer Hoggett’s wife leaving the primary human interaction to Cromwell who carries off the role without a hint of sarcasm. It’s a gentle performance that gives his scenes acting opposite green screens a humane quality that might have been lost with lesser actors.

Told with chapter headings introduced by high-pitched mice, the film flows marvelously in a simple, yet powerful stream of observational details. The realities of life that humans take for granted are given new angles when put into the positions of animals unfamiliar with their supposed fate. If there were any film to convince you that veganism is an important life choice, this might be it. That said, it holds so many unique perspectives that young children are sure to take beneficial messages from its content. While some of it might be a bit shocking for the younger kids, those who are approaching their teenage years, but who are still impressionable, might pick something up as well.

For such an empowering tale of defying expectations, Babe is as accessible as any film targeted mainly at children. Its life lessons are potent ones that even adults can learn from. While a number of adults will dismiss the film as pure childish falderal, some of them could use a bit of re-education through the picture’s content. For a film that released in the mid-90s, it holds some valuable viewpoints that may have helped influence the millennial generation into being the largely open-minded lot they’ve become.

Babe is a delightful tale told with untold depths of joy and acceptance. It says that not only should you be accepted for who you are, you should be accepted regardless of what you choose to do or who you choose to be. If it’s this simple to express in a children’s film, it shouldn’t be such a hard concept for older audiences to grasp and embrace.

Review Written

May 25, 2022