{"id":1236395641,"date":"2025-10-16T11:31:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T18:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/?p=1236395641"},"modified":"2025-10-18T09:36:41","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T16:36:41","slug":"little-amelie-or-the-character-of-rain-review-charmingly-sensorial-french-animation-flick-depicts-early-childhood-as-magical-and-hauntingly-real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-reviews\/little-amelie-or-the-character-of-rain-review-charmingly-sensorial-french-animation-flick-depicts-early-childhood-as-magical-and-hauntingly-real-1236395641\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Little Am\u00e9lie or the Character of Rain’ Review: Animated French Charmer Portrays the Magic and Terror of Early Childhood"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t\t
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\tScientists have proven that the human brain develops more rapidly from birth to the age of 5 than it does at any other time in one\u2019s life. And yet when it comes to movies, there\u2019s probably no other period harder to depict on screen. Films like Look Who\u2019s Talking<\/em> and The Boss Baby<\/a><\/em> have certainly tried and, to an extent, succeeded in capturing the joys and chaos of infancy and toddlerhood. But they rarely manage to channel that age\u2019s sense of discovery, mystery and terror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tIn the charming new French animation flick Little Am\u00e9lie or the Character of Rain<\/em> (Am\u00e9lie et la m\u00e9taphysique des tubes<\/em>), those feelings are front and center in a story that favors sensations over storytelling, plunging the viewer into the brain of a child waking up to the world around her for the first time. The twist, so to speak, in Ma\u00eflys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han\u2019s feature debut, is that the child in question is a Belgian girl growing up in rural Japan in the 1960s \u2014 a place filled with countless natural wonders, but also marked by the scars of a major war that haven\u2019t quite healed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tAdapted from the autobiographical novel by Am\u00e9lie Nothomb (Fear and Trembling<\/em>), the film feels at times like Terrence Malick meets Hayao Miyazaki for tykes, combining playful subjectivity with surreal flights of fancy. But it also maintains a narrative throughline that\u2019s simple enough for any kid to follow, showing how its titular heroine literally emerges from her bubble to discover the pleasures and dangers of real life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\t\u201cYour child is a vegetable,\u201d a doctor tells the parents of 2-year-old Am\u00e9lie (Lo\u00efse Charpentier), who lives in a remote country home nestled in the forests of Japan\u2019s picturesque Kobe region. And it\u2019s true: The baby girl doesn\u2019t speak or react much at first, silently watching the world go by from her bouncy chair until two pivotal events shake her out of her stupor. The first is an earthquake that rattles the house into disarray. The second is the arrival of Am\u00e9lie\u2019s grandmother (Cathy Cerda), who flies in from Brussels with the best gift any child could hope for: white Belgian chocolate straight from the source.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tAfter those two shocks to the system, Am\u00e9lie suddenly opens up, revealing a gift for language and observation that makes her not only grandma\u2019s favorite, but a darling companion to her Japanese nanny Nishio-San (Victoria Grobois), with whom she spends most of her time. The only hiccup in the girl\u2019s enchanting new life is an older landlady (Yumi Fujimori) who haunts the property like a ghost in a Kenji Mizoguchi movie, scaring Am\u00e9lie whenever she wanders off into the surrounding flora and fauna.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tCollaborating on their first feature after working on high-profile Gallic animation projects like The Little Prince<\/a><\/em>, The Illusionist<\/em> and I Lost My Body<\/a><\/em>, Vallade and Han favor an explosive color palette without any lines separating one shade from another. The effect feels more like a watercolor painting \u2014 or a Japanese print \u2014 in motion than a traditional kids cartoon, highlighting the marvels Am\u00e9lie discovers as she ventures out of her home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tOne standout sequence has the family attending an annual festival in which carp-shaped windsocks fill the sky while schools of carp savagely feast on bread in the sea. Another scene shows Nishio-San taking Am\u00e9lie to a day of the dead ritual, with hundreds of glowing lanterns floating down a river to mark the occasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tDeath seems to hover over the girl\u2019s budding existence as much as life. After seeing her father (Marc Arnaud) break down in tears, she learns that her grandma passed away back in Belgium, forcing her to accept the fact that she\u2019ll never see the woman again. Through both Nishio-San and her evil landlady, she also learns about the devastating losses caused by the Second World War \u2014 losses for which some locals blame Europeans like Am\u00e9lie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tThis is not easy information for a kid to digest, and the filmmakers don’t always make their heavy themes as fun and palatable as in a Pixar flick. They opt instead for the kind of realism found in Manga adaptations like the Hiroshima chronicle, In This Corner of the World<\/a><\/em>, which they cite in the press notes, although their movie is ultimately more uplifting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tIndeed, the film proved a modest crowd-pleaser for its local release, raking in over 200,000 admissions after premiering in Cannes and playing competition in Annecy. Like its French counterpart Arco<\/a><\/em>, which Neon will be releasing on November 14th, Little Am\u00e9lie<\/em> strikes the right balance between childhood fantasies and adult realties, between imagination and a more pessimistic view of the world as it is. Both movies prove not only that France remains an incubator for highly original animated features \u2014 all three directors emerged from Paris\u2019 Gobelins visual arts school \u2014 but that kids can still be major sources of creative inspiration, if we just take them at their word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Directors Ma\u00eflys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han adapt Belgian writer Am\u00e9lie Nothomb’s bestselling autobiographical novel, which follows a 2-year-old girl growing up in Japan in the 1960s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1223302,"featured_media":1236209987,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"override_post_title":"","override_post_excerpt":"","authors":[],"contributors":[],"styled_by":[],"_image_credit":"","_wp_attachment_image_alt":"","pmc_selected_wwd_video_media":"","pmc_top_video_source":"","pmc_top_video_duration":"","wwd_top_video_source":"","wwd_top_video_duration":"","pmc_selected_featured_media":"","pmc_selected_video_media":"","pmc_selected_variety_video_media":"","variety_top_video_source":"","variety_top_video_duration":"","pmc_featured_media_has_alt_text":true,"_pmc_featured_animated_media_id":0,"_pmc_featured_video_override_data":"","_pmc_featured_video_override_url":"","_pmc_featured_video_response_data":"","pmc-gallery-linked-gallery":{},"pmc_list_item_description":"","primary_category":"","primary_vertical":"","_mt_pmc_exclude_from_seo":"","_pmc_opengraph_title":"","_pmc_opengraph_description":"","categories":59,"subcategories":114,"thr-review-summary-credits":"Release date:<\/strong> Friday, Nov. 7
Cast:<\/strong> Lo\u00efse Charpentier, Victoria Grobois, Yumi Fujimori, Cathy Cerda, Marc Arnaud, Laetitia Coryn
Directors:<\/strong> Ma\u00eflys Vallade, Liane-Cho Han
Screenwriters:<\/strong> Liane-Cho Han, Aude Py, Ma\u00eflys Vallade, Eddine No\u00ebl, based on the novel by Am\u00e9lie Nothomb
","thr-full-credit":"Release date: Friday, Nov. 7
Venues: Cannes Film Festival (Special Screenings); Annecy Film Festival (Competition)
Cast: Lo\u00efse Charpentier, Victoria Grobois, Yumi Fujimori, Cathy Cerda, Marc Arnaud, Laetitia Coryn
Production companies: Maybe Movies, Ikki Films
Directors: Ma\u00eflys Vallade, Liane-Cho Han
Screenwriters: Liane-Cho Han, Aude Py, Ma\u00eflys Vallade, Eddine No\u00ebl, based on the novel by Am\u00e9lie Nothomb
Producers: Nidia Santiago, Edwina Liard, Claire La Combe, Henri Magalon
Exeuctive producers: Jean-Michel Spiner, Mireille Sarrazin
Production designer: Eddine No\u00ebl
Editor: Ludovic Versace
Composer: Mari Fukuhara
Sales: Goodfellas
In French
","thr-review-mpaa-rating":"PG","thr-review-running-time":"1 hour 17 minutes","_synopsis":"A colorful kids flick that tackles serious themes.","_air_date":"00-00-00","pmc-imdb-id":"","pmc-review-type":"movie-reviews","pmc-review-rating":"","pmc-review-rating-out-of":"","pmc-review-snippet":"","pmc-review-title":"Little Am\u00e9lie or the Character of Rain","pmc-review-canonical-link":"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt29313285\/","pmc-theatrical-release-date":0,"pmc-director":"Ma\u00eflys Vallade, Liane-Cho Han","pmc-review-image_attachment_id":0,"thr_post_headlines":"Directors Ma\u00eflys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han adapt Belgian writer Am\u00e9lie Nothomb's bestselling autobiographical novel, which follows a 2-year-old girl growing up in Japan in the 1960s.","_variety-sub-heading":"","mt_seo_title":"'Little Am\u00e9lie or the Character of Rain' Review: A Lovely French 'Toon","mt_seo_description":"In 'Little Am\u00e9lie or the Character of Rain', directors Ma\u00eflys Vallade and 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