Long Live Soup!

You know when you go and see an animated film about a talking mouse, primarily to appease the animated mouse-loving part of your girlfriend’s brain, expecting it to be poorly-conceived and childish schlock but walking away having seen one of the most refreshing pieces of cinema in recent memory? You know that experience? No? Then go and see The Tale of Despereaux. Oh, and get a girlfriend. Especially if you’re a girl yourself, then film your experiences and send them to me.

Had I not been gently strong-armed into seeing this film, it would have completely passed me by. It would have sailed into the part of my brain that serves as a graveyard for probably-rubbish unwatched movies, alongside Herbie: Fully Loaded, or Stealth, or all those other films I haven’t bothered to watch and probably never will. If it had made this journey, my life would be a little less rich, and I wouldn’t even know it.

Where to begin? A talking mouse probably strikes you as a little unimaginative, but how about a city whose culture, economy and wellbeing revolves entirely around soup? Or a magic cookbook which summons a French chef made from fruits, vegetables and kitchenware? Or two distinct rodent civilisations put across with surprising depth for the small amount of screentime they’re actually given? It’s based on a book, entitled The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread. Having received somewhere just shy of about a million books this Christmas, I might have to put a pause on working my way through the pile so I can find a copy, and give it the attention it clearly deserves.

As well as a series of highly expressive characters, human and vermin alike, voiced by a cast of diverse yet familiar actors, the film has a surprisingly complex plot, which it nonetheless manages to weave and present in a very fluent and well-paced manner. It’s bolted together from standardised storybook components such as daring heroes, lonely princesses and bitter underlings (it is a children’s film, after all), but they’re pieced side by side in such a polished and minimalist way that every bit of it seems to be pulling its weight. There’s no gratuitous fat to trim from it. The narrative has nothing but what it needs in order to work, but it really does work.

Unlike a lot of contemporary animated films, it’s very sparse on the humour. It does have its moments, but it’s not played for laughs. There’s an actual story it’s trying to deliver, and that story is well-told, maturely developed and surprisingly charming. Remember charm? That thing we used to be charmed by, before ironic and edgy humour corroded our hearts into post-modern gag-processing machines.

I do worry this film will slip by unnoticed, into the probably-rubbish mental graveyards of so many people who would otherwise enjoy it enormously. It is a genuine worry I possess, because it deserves to be seen and enjoyed, and if you’re inclined towards being charmed by something unexpectedly good, you deserve to see and enjoy it. Please do.