Flow (2024) is directed by Gints Zilbalodis and follows a solitary black cat thrust into a grand adventure after a massive flood devastates its home. As the cat searches for a new place to call home, it reluctantly joins forces with several animals, including a lazy capybara, a curious lemur, a flightless bird, and a roaming pack of domesticated dogs. Facing unexpected dangers at nearly every turn, the various species are forced to band together in order to survive.

Although the film unoriginally features a slew of cute animals similar to what seems like half of all animated films, it stands out due to the fact that it completely commits to these kinds of characters. Most animated movies featuring animal characters allow them to walk, talk, and act just like humans, but Flow makes the choice to portray its animals more realistically. This unsurprisingly sacrifices a chance to develop these characters in more complex ways, but it’s balanced by the fact that they feel exponentially more authentic. Just like in real life, the audience is forced to understand the animals through their actions. They’re not complex, but they feel real – I’ll take that trade. 

Because the characters can’t speak, it forces the film to tell its entire story visually. Although it occasionally lost me as a viewer due to the fact that it’s sometimes challenging to understand what the characters are thinking, the film’s uniquely kinetic animation breeds a true sense of awe from beginning to end. The images consistently highlight the duality of nature – its destructive capabilities but also its serene beauty.

The film easily earns its title by achieving a lax, darkly beautiful tone that flows softly and easily. This allows the movie to work extremely well if the viewer is in a headspace of simply soaking up some beautiful imagery. The thing is, as soon as you wanna dig a little deeper, it’s clear the movie doesn’t offer much in terms of plot. This is strange considering that the lack of dialogue doesn’t seem very accessible to younger audiences, so then why provide such simplistic plotting? It just makes a person struggle to understand who exactly this movie is for. It’s also unnecessarily abstract at times – even for adults. The movie asks us to go with the flow and take it all in but then contradicts itself by asking us to make sense of abstract moments.

Overall, this beautiful and unique animated film displays the power of visual storytelling in its purest form. That being said, it still sports a handful of problems that are simply just too big to ignore. I understand why this snagged the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film, but it wouldn’t have been my pick. The Wild Robot & Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl are miles more entertaining than this. That being said, I won’t be surprised if it speaks to people a lot more than it did to me. B-