My Life As A Courgette – Release Date: 2nd June 2017

On the surface, My Life As A Courgette looks like another throwaway animation, another “nice” film that comes and goes with little thought put into it. Thankfully, the film has enough nuance and emotion with it to make it a surprisingly hard hitting animation. The story is good too although the only gripe comes from its short length, at a little over an hour it feels like its over before it begins. It zips by at a decent pace though and with some good animation and voice acting, My Life As A Courgette is definitely worth a watch.

The story follows a little boy called Courgette who’s sent to a foster home following the death of his mother and whilst there, finds himself on a spiritual journey to discover who he is and what it means to be loved. Its a beautiful tale and one that’s told with such intelligence by portraying its themes through the eyes of 9 year old Courgette. The innocent narrative of this boy as he discusses hard hitting subjects like love, abuse, drinking and even exploiting the benefit system are all explored but it never feels like a political narrative, more a plot device to drive the characters forward. Its a beautiful way of presenting the ideas and its handled with perfection when it so easily could have been a disaster.

The voice acting is good too and the English dubbed voice acting is just as good as the French with the film easily enjoyable either way. Its worth noting here that this animated film made in France has the credits and most of its writing in French. Ordinarily this wouldn’t be an issue but if you do choose to watch the film dubbed in English, it is a relevant point to make as it can be quite jarring at times. Of course, the universal themes the film explores is the driving force for this animation and it really is surprisingly deep at times.

A true diamond in the rough, My Life As A Courgette is a beautiful, sad, happy, funny bubble of emotion that effortlessly manages to tell a tale that’s both deep in moral questions yet easily digestable. The animation is great and the stop motion used here is really good. Its not quite at the same level as say Kubo And The Two Strings, but its grown up themes told through the not-so grown up Courgette are beautifully presented and it never feels overbearing. It is thought provocative and aside from its length which could have been longer, its a small animation with a big heart.