Academy Award Winning ‘Flow’ Hits UK Cinemas – Review
During this year’s cinematic awards season, when it came to the category for best-animated feature, plenty of titles deserved the nomination, whether it’s Pixar’s anticipated sequel Inside Out 2, Dreamworks’ critically acclaimed The Wild Robot, or Aardman’s fan-favourite duo making their return in Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. However, these titles lost the Golden Globe, the Academy Award, and countless festival awards for the category to a production that seemed to have come out of nowhere: Flow.
Costing just under three million pounds to produce, it also had the additional challenge of being animated remotely across three European continents and entirely with the open-source software Blender. But what made Flow stand out and succeed above many brilliant releases across the past year? And is it worth seeing on the big screen amongst other major titles?
© Dream Well Studio, Sacrebleu Productions, Take Five, Charades
Set in a mysterious and seemingly abandoned world by humans, nature has taken over the world with various animals now roaming the forest that the film opens up with. Amongst them is a lone and timid cat who suddenly finds themselves unexpectedly caught up in a great flood that covers the world as they know it. But after being saved by a passing boat with a capybara, their world soon opens up and so does their trust in others, when the crew slowly grows with other rescued animals as they sail across this new, perilous, and evolving world.
Despite the lack of dialogue and the challenges of a story being told exclusively from the perspective of a small feline, writers Gintz Zibalodis and Matiss Kaza did a great job of not just creating a simple yet beautifully executed story, but one where each character has a surprisingly deep arc for all the characters that make them much more entertaining and engaging to follow. The approach and result are rarely executed so well on film and their efforts have paid off, easily being the best non-dialogue animated film since 2023’s Robot Dreams.
© Dream Well Studio, Sacrebleu Productions, Take Five, Charades
While the script by Zibalodis and Kaza was brilliantly crafted, the team of animators and designers should be proud that they could create a visually unique and beautiful world despite their limitations.
The deliberate choice to use watercolour and painted-looking textures over the computer-animated models is pulled off beautifully to make both the characters and their natural and archaeological backgrounds pleasing to look at, especially with how lighting and colours compliment one another, giving the film a strong visual identity that compliments the story and worldbuilding. This also makes the characters stand out as these touches of lighting and visual strokes give each animal plenty of emotion through their expressions and body language, adding depth to their personalities and motions.
Zibalodis did a great job directing the film with its strong focus on visual storytelling and using animation and camera work effectively. There are many moments where tension and humour come in waves and the camera beautifully reflects this with so much going on in such a short running time, whether it’s the point of view of the cat struggling to swim in the flood, aerial shots across the biblical landscape, or a pack of dogs sweeping through the forest. These shots combined with the design and deliberate aesthetic make this film feel like a grounded yet mythical story that feels reminiscent of some of Studio Ghibli’s past works.
© Dream Well Studio, Sacrebleu Productions, Take Five, Charades
Despite its limitations and obstacles, Flow is a brilliantly visual film driven beautifully by its characters and their journey through a unique and mysterious world that is simply captivating from start to finish. Once it reaches its final shot, the film will captivate audiences, which certainly shows why it deserved its Academy Award win. If you can, this should be experienced on the big screen.
© Dream Well Studio, Sacrebleu Productions, Take Five, Charades
Flow will be released in UK cinemas on the 21st of March 2025.
(Check out our Interview with Flow’s Oscar winning director Gints Zilbalodis here.)