Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
Celestine is a little mouse trying to avoid a dental career while Ernest is a big bear craving an artistic outlet. When Celestine meets Ernest, they overcome their natural enmity by forging a life of crime together.
Ernest & Celestine is a gem of European animation, distinguished above all by its exquisite watercolor-sketch visual style — painterly, loose, and wholly distinctive from the dominant CG aesthetic. The film's hand-drawn look earns a genuine top mark in cinematography. Its thematic pairing of an unlikely friendship with a pointed social allegory about prejudice and conformity gives it real novelty; the premise of two outcasts bonding through petty crime is charming and singular in the animation landscape. The voice performances (in the French original) are warm and naturalistic, fitting the intimate tone well without being especially remarkable. The plot is endearingly simple — almost too modest, leaning on its sweetness more than narrative complexity — and the ending, while emotionally satisfying, resolves a little neatly and quickly, lacking the full weight the themes could have sustained.