There’s not enough whimsy in the world. Instead, we’ve got extremes. Something is either “the greatest,” “a masterpiece,” “the best it’s ever been,” or “it’s the worst,” “mediocre,” “a blight upon our collective existence.” There’s no space, it seems, for fun, for delight, for looking at the world in a different way so as to explore ourselves and our emotions without giving in to one pole or another. Whimsy is what we’re missing, for without it, we are unable to see the magic in the moment, the prospects that surround us, and the opportunity to be delighted. Whimsy doesn’t require absolutes, just possibility. In their animated slightly-musical film Chicken for Linda!, co-writers/co-directors Chiara Malta (Simple Women) and Sébastien Laudenbach (The Girl Without Hands) option whimsy as the means by which to explore the struggles of parenthood, the unrelenting determination of childhood, and the magic that surrounds us when we allow it. After a theatrical release period in April 2024, Chicken for Linda! arrives on VOD in North America, just in time for one story of rebellion to meet another in the United States.
Linda voiced by Mélinée Leclerc in CHICKEN FOR LINDA!. Photo Credit: Dolce Vita Films, Miyu Productions, Palosanto Films, France 3 Cinéma. Photo courtesy of GKIDS Films.
Since she was young, Linda (voiced by Mélinée Leclerc) has loved her mother’s ring. So much so that she’s snuck every opportunity to place it on one of her fingers. One day, when her ring goes missing, Paulette (voiced by Clotilde Hesme) presumes Linda took it and enacts punishment. However, Linda was not the culprit and Paulette asks what she can do to make things right. Linda has but one answer, for Paulette to make chicken with peppers, a dish Linda’s father used to make and she wants to revisit. On its surface, it’s a simple request, but its timing is unfortunate and requires Paulette to confront every parent’s daily dilemma: break her daughter’s trust once more or go to any length to make things right.
L-R: Linda voiced by Mélinée Leclerc and Paulette voiced by Clotilde Hesme in CHICKEN FOR LINDA!. Photo Credit: Dolce Vita Films, Miyu Productions, Palosanto Films, France 3 Cinéma. Photo courtesy of GKIDS Films.
Unlike fellow animated family tales Encanto (2021) or even Goodbye, Don Glees! (2021), when describing Linda! as “magical,” it’s not in the literal sense. There’s no magical-realism present in Malta and Laudenbach’s story, so much as it is what my children would call “Mommy Magic” or “Daddy Magic,” that liminal space where a child’s worldview is still small and their imagination large despite being old enough to recognize the limitations of their parents and see the humanity within them versus seeing their parents as omnipotent. It’s a delicate balance for a story to explore, especially when the tone veers from grounded interpersonal interactions into farcical comedy and back without giving the audience tonal whiplash. Some of this is softened by the use of animation, an aspect that loosens the rules of reality, allowing for the chicken (living) that Paulette tracks down for Linda to be comically persistent, for gravity to be far less of a concern when Paulette finds herself in the middle of a chase, and for peaceful and poignant resolution to come for all. And some of this is brought down to earth by incorporating Paulette’s older sister, Astrid (voiced by Laetitia Dosch), who offers an outsider’s perspective on Paulette as a person who tends to avoid responsibility and dashes off as she pleases. The perspective utilized by the filmmakers to draw a clear connecting line between the mother and daughter, making the outlandish reasonable for these characters. In essence, the directors created a world in which whimsy exists without being overbearing or dominant. It exists to support, to soften, to reduce the already tyrannical disquiet that plagues the world of Linda and Paulette.
Paulette voiced by Clotilde Hesme in CHICKEN FOR LINDA!. Photo Credit: Dolce Vita Films, Miyu Productions, Palosanto Films, France 3 Cinéma. Photo courtesy of GKIDS Films.
This is where Linda! begins both visually and narratively as Malta and Laudenbach open with colorful bubbles that give away to characters, setting the stage for the emotional aspect of the familial conflict that propels the film. These bubbles seem silly at first, the way in which they serve to confine the characters into singular spaces, until one realizes that it’s a specific choice to demonstrate the small sphere of understanding that the characters of Linda and Paulette begin within. For the former, it’s a child not understanding the death of her father before her and, for the latter, how the death impacts more than just herself and, as a parent, failing to see her child as a person who needs the memories only confines herself further in her pain. Similarly, one may initially think the hand-painted 2D animation style would come across as rigid and formless, when, in execution, the directors are able to conceive of a world that’s alive and malleable. Characters become more detailed as they grow closer to the frame and lose them as they move more distant; focus is pulled using a halo of the dominant color of the object (green for the ring; yellow for (spoilers)) to make the thing easier to track, and anything moving seems itself to be ever so slightly being undone and redrawn with each shift or act. The lack of smoothness in the movement takes some getting used to, but, once acclimated, we recognize it as a feature, not a bug. The arcs of the central characters, and some of the side ones, are ones in which they must take who they are and deconstruct them in order to recognize who they need to be. This applies mostly to Linda and Paulette, for they are at the center of the tale, but it’s interesting to explore where it impacts others.
L-R: Linda voiced by Mélinée Leclerc and Paulette voiced by Clotilde Hesme in CHICKEN FOR LINDA!. Photo Credit: Dolce Vita Films, Miyu Productions, Palosanto Films, France 3 Cinéma. Photo courtesy of GKIDS Films.
Another fascinating aspect of the narrative is the larger connection between populace and governance. The day before the search for chicken begins, Linda is at school and the singular scene we observe of her in class involves a history lesson in which Parisians decided to impart their own justice upon a king believed to be unfair. The students learn of the beheading, reacting with a very specific mixture of awe and aversion, though Linda doesn’t respond at all, so engrossed in her internal world she is. That same day, news reports share that a strike is going off as workers seek better conditions, something that is important for us to know regarding the world, but that Paulette barely registers. These choices do two things: they establish that both Linda and Paulette are similar in their absolute disregard for anything that doesn’t involve them and sets a tone regarding civil disobedience, specifically, fighting back against forces which seem unfair or place undue pressure on those who work to keep society running. As we learn about Paulette through Astrid, we come to realize that Linda’s determination and seeming perception of life without restraint falls in line with Paulette’s, thereby coding Astrid as the larger, colder force (government) and Paulette as the whimsy (people). It’s a fascinating bit of character design meshed with thematic elements, each of which smoothly connect to the other as what the audience initial presumes about obstinate children and hard-nose parents rotates in order to reveal a larger exploration of childhood and parenthood and the similar relationship between a government and its citizenry. Like the catalyst for this story, it’s all treated with a mix of tenderness and silliness, balanced precariously, but balanced nonetheless.
L-R: Serge voiced by Estéban, Paulette voiced by Clotilde Hesme, Linda voiced by Mélinée Leclerc, and Jean-Michel voiced by Patrick Pineau in CHICKEN FOR LINDA!. Photo Credit: Dolce Vita Films, Miyu Productions, Palosanto Films, France 3 Cinéma. Photo courtesy of GKIDS Films.
Life is so often devoid of silliness that films like Chicken for Linda! come off as surprises. The narrative does explore dark places of loss and of feeling like one grows up too fast as a result of sibling responsibilities, but it also highlights how community and friendship can raise us up. So even though the film begins in darkness, the way it traverses the obstacles to end in delightful light hits the audience like a spray of golden light that refreshes and energizes. More than that, it reminds us that we give weight to the things that matter, that sorrow can impact any age, and that joy shared truly does raise us all up.
Available on digital July 2nd, 2024.
For more information, head to the official GKIDS Films Chicken for Linda! webpage.
Final Score: 3.5 out of 5.
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