Ernest and Celestine (2012) - French animated film

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Really sweet film about a mouse and bear who live in a world where mice live in the gutters below the bear filled streets. The mice only venture up to the world above to gather teeth to replace their lost ones. Ernest, the bear, befriends Celestine, the mouse, and they both do each other several favours involving food or teeth and end up each being ousted from their worlds and having to live life together in hiding.

Firstly it is beautifully animated. I think it's done in water-colours which are amazing and, although it means that the animation was not as detailed as we are used to now it looks good enough to over-look the slight lack of mise-en-scene. Despite the minimal backgrounds and simplistic look of the characters they all move around exceedingly well and they do not appear to be hindered by the fact they are drawn.

The story is really familiar, it reminds me of BFG or Up, and more than being a familiar plot is a very common one amongst children films so it's double the cliché. Despite this it doesn't really suffer hugely because there are some original touches which distinguish it a lot from other versions of this tale. It's just a shame that when the film industry seems to be constantly making remakes or sequels that every corner of the industry is running out of ideas and just recycling the old-faithfuls.

It's a very enjoyable film and great for adults or children. There are light-hearted/funny moments but it isn't happy all the way through so it doesn't become boring. The ending, not to give anything away, is actually quite dramatic and scary but really interesting and well animated. Definitely worth a watch if you are an animation fan.