Review: Flow (2024)

Flow

Rating

Director

Gints Zilbalodis

Screenplay

Matiss Kaza, Gints Zilbalodis

Length

1h 25m

Starring

None

MPAA Rating

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Review

With a look that embodies the soft hues and patterns of watercolor, one might be hard-pressed to believe Flow is made with computer animation tools. That sense of wonder isn’t reserved for its successful use of a medium.

There’s an expression that serves as a foundation for a film like this: “Go with the flow.” It means to take what strange occurrences life throws at you and let them guide you where you need to go. Our protagonist is a feline who must learn this very challenging lesson while their quiet world is turned upside down. While trying to outrun a pack of dogs attempting to retrieve the fish the cat stole from them, a herd of deer flee some unknown disaster in the distance, causing confusion within the cat until the deluge that bears down on them sweeps them away into a rapidly worsening situation.

Making it back to their home and hoping things won’t get worse, the waters continue to rise and soon everything they knew has been submerged. A capybara in a boat comes to their rescue and they are soon joined by a yellow lab, a ring-tailed lemur, and a secretarybird along with several other critters along the way. For animals in the wild, trust is difficult to achieve and much of the journey is spent staking out territory in the boat, learning how to survive on one’s own.

Director Gints Zilbalodis takes great inspiration from nature and ancient cities, exploring crumbling ruins, and giving the audience a gorgeous look at the nature around them, an environment the animals on the boat can barely recognize, using landmarks to guide their way. He explores the nature of animals and their survival instincts. While many animals are depicted as territorial and cliquish, the survivors on the boat may only tolerate one another but they are like unto outcasts, wanting to persevere rather than perish. It’s an interesting examination of human nature through the lens of fauna that populate our planet. Although it would be difficult to place this particular adventure, as it seems to resemble our world but no specific space within it, the themes are universal.

An art style this fluid and impressive can smooth over any deficiencies in the film. The one sour note was the wrap of the secretarybird’s story arc. While it was beautifully animated, it didn’t fit tonally with the rest of the picture, which was rooted in realism rather than fantasy (though the origin of the flood and its retreat are questionably realistic). It was an unnecessary moment designed to elicit an emotional response from the audience and while it will with some, for others it will be a discordant moment that takes the viewer out of the experience.

Flow has so many positive qualities that it will please the most die-hard animation fan. For those who consider animation a lesser artform, it’s possible this event won’t please them unless they get into the philosophical concepts of it or the realistic nature of the narrative. Either way, it will entertain many but not everyone.