Stopmotion (2024)
Great animation, but an underwritten script
Stopmotion is about puppetry – both the actual puppetry performed by stop motion animators, and the figurative puppetry conducted by people who seek to control others. It’s an interesting theme, but the film struggles to explore it in an intelligent way.
This movie is one of those quirky “tortured artist” character studies, like Black Swan or Birdman. Unfortunately, it doesn’t match up to either of those films. The characters aren’t as intriguing and the dialogue isn’t as sharp. The character development that was depicted in those movies isn’t present here.
Stop motion animation is painstakingly difficult work. This movie features plenty of fun grotesque characters and the animation is top notch. It appears that most of this movie’s energies were directed toward this aspect of the production. It’s too bad that the script was neglected by comparison.
A Troubled Young Artist
Ella (Aisling Franciosi) is a young stop motion animator who is at the mercy of her overbearing mother, Suzanne (Stella Gonet). After her mom becomes incapacitated by a stroke, Ella presses on. She works on a feature film involving the characters that she has created.
One day, while at her apartment, she encounters a mysterious young girl who is critical of her work. The sassy youngster demands that Ella change her movie to make it more interesting. Ella is indignant at the girl’s criticisms, but feels strangely compelled to comply with her suggestions. She begins to experience nightmarish visions of her puppets attacking her.
There is a predictable and cliched twist involving the little girl that is revealed late in the film. I won’t give it away, but anyone who has seen a movie before, like any movie ever, will be able to guess it extremely easily. And that pretty much sums up the level of thought (or lack thereof) that went into this movie’s script.
Ella enjoys the feeling of control that she gets while making her own film. It’s a stark contrast to her relationship with her mother. At one point, her mom literally tells her: “You can’t control anything. You’re a puppet caught in your own strings. And if it isn’t me pulling them, it’s somebody else.” This movie’s dialogue has the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face.
I always like to call out creative deaths. To this movie’s credit, it has one I’ve never seen. A character is stabbed with a camera tripod leg. Great stuff!
Stopmotion vs. May
Stopmotion‘s disturbed protagonist reminds me of May (Angela Bettis) from the eponymously named 2002 film. Both characters struggle with loneliness, are artists with a taste for the macabre, and eventually resort to murder to achieve their artistic visions. I included May in this post about female slasher villains.
May does a great job portraying its protagonist’s deep loneliness and profound sorrow. It’s easy to sympathize with her, even though she does terrible things. Unfortunately, Ella is a pale shadow in comparison. In fact, all the characters in this movie are flat. The script never gives a reason to care about any of them.
Aisling Franciosi will be remembered by Game of Thrones viewers for her brief but memorable role as Lyanna Stark. She’s a skilled actress and does a fine job in Stopmotion, but the writing does her no favors.
Rating
Stopmotion has cool animation and a fairly strong lead performance by Aisling Franciosi, but it’s dragged down by a bland, heavy handed script. If you want to watch a movie about a disturbed artist who resorts to violence to fulfill her darkest fantasies, try May instead.
Rating from 1 (avoid at all costs) to 10 (masterpiece): 5
