This year’s Best Animated Feature race is going to be a doozy. Not only does DreamWorks Animation have “The Wild Robot” garnering endless buzz, but a slew of smaller animated titles are also scoring excitement. Hype is already building for the next “Wallace & Gromit” movie from stop-motion animated wizards Aardman “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” which will have its world premiere at AFI Fest next week, while the acclaimed “Memoir of a Snail” also feels like a strong contender for an Oscar nomination, especially after Academy Award-winner Adam Elliott’s previous feature film “Mary & Max” didn’t get in there, so the Academy may want to make that up to him 15 years later. Don’t forget about “Flow,“ which took people’s breath away with its animal-centric storyline at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where it was up for the festival’s Un Certain Regard prize.
There’s no end to the possibilities for the next batch of Best Animated Feature nominees. However, one tinier feature from France deserves to be remembered come Oscar nomination time. The delightful low-key pleasures of “Chicken for Linda!“ from directors Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach are just as worthy of an Oscar nomination as any other animated title this year.
The film’s title is a straightforward reflection of its narrative– a simple yet engaging story about a mother, Paulette (Clotilde Hesme), and her eight-year-old daughter, Linda (Melinée Leclerc). The latter requests a chicken dinner after her mother asks how she can apologize to Linda for accusing her of mischief she didn’t commit. Despite the congested area due to a strike and closed-up shops, Paulette is determined to bring her daughter the chicken dinner she craves. This sets the stage for a series of comic misadventures in pursuit of a perfect meal, a narrative that keeps the audience engaged and invested.
The concise (but not shallow) aesthetic of “Chicken for Linda!“ is a refreshing contrast to many American animated films that often rely on excess scope. Films like “Despicable Me 4“ tend to pile on the loudness and explosions to keep the attention of viewers of all ages. In contrast, “Chicken for Linda!“ exudes confidence in its reliance on streamlined means to drive and maintain a story. This quality informs its most low-key and amiable charms, a testament to the film’s impressive and respectful approach. Running just 73 minutes, “Chicken for Linda!“ manages to pack a lot of fun and vivid animation into a finite amount of space, a feat worth celebrating in an age of overlong animated cinema.
More important is the film’s animation style. Told through hand-drawn animation, its characters often resemble the humans in “Fantasia 2000’s” “Rhapsody in Blue“ segment, realized head-to-toe in one single primary color. Various lines on their bodies suggest outfits like overalls, dresses, and T-shirts, but Linda, for instance, is entirely yellow. Clothes, skin, hair, all yellow (or blue, red, green, etc. for other characters). Not only that, but often, their forms are defined by minimal or even absent lines. These are characters defined by restrained visual means and impressionistic tendencies rather than excessive realism.
Hand-drawn animation is a beautiful art form that should be cherished and supported whenever possible, and “Chicken for Linda!“ keenly demonstrates why. Within this story, a distinctive and stylized visual esthetic emerges that wouldn’t be possible in the realm of CGI storytelling. The smaller scope of the narrative lets audiences appreciate the movie’s wondrous color palette and imaginatively streamlined character designs. This is precisely the kind of visual mastery that deserves a spot in this year’s Best Animated Feature line-up.
Plus, “Chicken for Linda!“ would be a welcome addition to a category that too often defaults to American and CG-animated works. This tendency allows Disney and Pixar titles to come out on top predominantly. Over the last five Oscar ceremonies, only three of the 25 movies nominated for Best Animated Feature were realized in a foreign language. Hand-drawn titles have been similarly sparse, though at least “The Boy and the Heron“ eschewed that trend and took home the Best Animated Feature Oscar last year. “Chicken for Linda!“ already deserves a Best Animated Feature Oscar nomination for its artistry alone, but combatting uniformity in typical nominees in this category would be a delightful bonus.
Can something as tiny as “Chicken for Linda!“ (not to mention something released far away from the typical award season fare back in April) get the Academy’s attention? It’s not super likely, but it’s also far from impossible. In the United States, “Chicken for Linda!“ scored distribution from the folks at GKIDS, a studio focused on distributing animated foreign-language titles. They’ve become a recurring fixture of the Best Animated Feature category, starting with “The Secret of Kells“ at the 82nd Academy Awards.
From there, this distributor has turned a dozen further titles into Best Animated Feature Oscar nominees. So far, it looks like they may sit out the Best Animated Feature Oscar race simply because “Flow“ and “Memoir of a Snail“ (both of which are being released in North America by other distributors) have garnered the most Oscar buzz among indie animated titles. Still, don’t count out GKIDS until a few minutes after the Oscar nominations are read out. Previous GKIDS-distributed works like “Boy and the World“ and “A Cat in Paris“ were total surprise Best Animated Feature Oscar nominees. So it’s not outside the realm of possibility to suggest “Chicken for Linda!“ could easily follow in their footsteps.
Whether or not an Oscar nomination in this category comes to pass for “Chicken for Linda!,“ its artistic virtues remain unchallenged. This is still one of the more visually creative films of 2024 and a stirring reminder of hand-drawn animation’s tremendous power. It’ll still be all those things regardless of whether the Oscars pay attention to it or not. However, there’s no denying that a Best Animated Feature Oscar nomination certainly wouldn’t hurt its reputation, especially since it could also lend further modern notoriety to the hand-drawn animation format.
While the rest of the world awaits the release of “Moana 2“ or art house obsessives flock this weekend to see “Memoir Of A Snail“ for the first time or audiences go to rewatch “The Wild Robot,“ or those at home decide to stream “Inside Out 2“on Disney+, “Chicken for Linda!“ is the one animated film no one seems to be talking about. In a similar vein to other Oscar nominees for Best Animated Feature, such as “Chico and Rita,” “Ernest & Celestine“ or even last year’s “Robot Dreams,” “Chicken for Linda!“ is the type of obscure hand-drawn animated film the animation branch within the Academy has surprised us with before on Oscar nomination morning. Don’t underestimate it when looking at your Oscar predictions. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can stream it now on either the Criterion Channel or Apple TV+ and experience one of the year’s best-animated feature films.
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