Review of Song of the Sea (2014) by David M — 20 Jan 2016

Directionless and boring, this film aims to give Celtic folklore the Ghibli treatment, with a dash of Sylvain Chomet. It fails. Anyone claiming this is better than Inside Out, either for children or adults, is deluding themselves that there's somehow more to this film; ethereal music and long lingering scenes of nothing in particular must mean it's somehow deep, right? Terribly paced, with the visual appeal wearing off within 10 minutes of the start and nothing more plot-wise to really sustain interest.

Quite how this has scored so highly really baffles me. Emperor's new clothes, some desire to see Pixar as an evil franchise, rooting for the underdog... I am not quite sure what it is, but this is not a good film by any stretch of the imagination.

Another stretch is to imagine children, particularly, sitting through this. A really thin plot with a non-ending, which seems to be an attempt to dress up the sparse, at times confusingly poor story as something wonderfully "ambiguous".

Genuinely wanted to like this, as I generally do like "rooting for the underdog", but was sorely disappointed with this film.