Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
Forcibly separated from her twin brother when they are orphaned, a melancholic misfit learns how to find confidence within herself amid the clutter of misfortunes and everyday life.
Adam Elliot's claymation feature is a singularly voiced piece of adult animation — mournful, wryly funny, and achingly personal. The voice performances (particularly Sarah Snook) are exceptional, carrying tremendous emotional weight. The visual craft is stunning, with Elliot's textured stop-motion world feeling wholly unique and unmistakably his own — earning a genuine 4 for both acting and cinematography. Novelty is high because the film's specific tone, its deadpan grief-comedy and handcrafted aesthetic, is genuinely one-of-a-kind even within the stop-motion canon. The plot, while emotionally rich, meanders episodically and relies on an accumulation of misfortunes that can feel relentless rather than structured — competent but not exceptional. The ending, while warm and earned emotionally, is somewhat predictable in its arc toward self-acceptance and feels slightly tidy given the film's otherwise unsentimental tone.