Grand prize winner at such prestigious competitions as the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and the Animation Is Film Festival, Chicken for Linda! is a charming film that is a welcome departure from much of the animation we’ve come to expect from the big animation studios of today.
Chicken for Linda! follows the exploits of the lively and determined Linda and her overworked and widowed mother Paulette. After a stressed-out Paulette mistakenly punishes Linda for something the cat did, her remorse leads her to promise Linda anything she wants…and what Linda wants is a chicken dinner like her father used to make.
What should have been a fairly simple task is made excruciatingly difficult as the general strike going on in the background of their domestic affairs has shut down all the stores and made getting a chicken next to impossible. The consequence is a madcap chicken-napping caper as Paulette’s attempts to fulfill Linda’s wish rapidly balloon out to become a huge quest drawing in any number of characters from her neighbors and family to the police.
The film has a striking look to it–in a distinct contrast to the majority of animated features nowadays that all seem to make everything as photorealistic as possible, directors Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach have created it hand-painted and stylized so that only the pertinent details are ever present to highlight what is important. Each major character has a different primary color, giving the impression of a naturally multicultural community. The linework is sharp and distinct and gives the characters a fluidity and expressiveness they could never have in live-action.
As unrealistic as the design might be, the writing shows an effective emotional sophistication that doesn’t shy away from the unpleasant aspects of love and death and the lengths the two combined can drive people. Paulette is tired and frustrated and has no answers for Linda when she asks about the afterlife. Linda is often selfish, relentless in not letting her mother off the hook of her chicken promise, and verbally cruel in the way of real children, scornfully telling Paulette that she can’t fix their broken home or anything else.
Despite dealing with some heavy subjects, the film manages to keep it lighthearted and never devolves into a big cryfest. While many of the characters manage to throw roadblocks in the mother and daughter’s search for poultry, they do so in a comically slapstick manner. There are several musical numbers that have a rough cheerfulness about them that fits in well with the slightly chaotic art direction.
The many characters here are well-delineated with even the tertiary ones given specific attitudes and points of view. Part of the contrast present is that the adults in their neighborhood are all off striking, leaving the children at home alone to do the cooking and the babysitting in an oddly mature but still endearingly inept fashion. Most relatable is Paulette’s older sister Astrid, upon whom she calls for pretty much every troubling circumstance. Clearly just trying to lead a healthy life of yoga and vegetables, the constant agitation from her perhaps overly-dependent sister drives Astrid to carry a purse full of candy she stress-eats with abandon, and really, who among us has not?
Ultimately, of course, the story is not about the chicken so much as it is about the journey the mother and daughter take to obtain it, and the mending of their relationship with their deceased husband/father and each other. It’s a well-written film with the kind of imaginative 2-D animation you often hear audiences wish would make a comeback–don’t miss it, now that it’s here.
Chicken for Linda! is currently in select theaters–check GKIDS for ticket information.