The Breadwinner (2017)

Directed by Nora Twomey. Starring (voices) Saara Chaudry, Soma Bhatia, Ali Badshah, Kawa Ada, Laara Sadiq, Noorin Gulamgaus, Ali Kazmi. [PG-13]

The sober, defiant story of Parvanna, an eleven-year-old girl in Kabul under Taliban rule who chooses to cut her hair and pass herself off as a male after her father is arrested. This narrative is interrupted from time to time by her telling of a metaphor-heavy boy’s quest fable, which ends up going exactly where you expect. Familiarity and predictability is what keeps this nice effort from emerging as an unreserved success; it’s emotionally engaging, told with confidence and clarity, and is even moving at times, but its resemblance to numerous earlier movies—from the strikingly similar premise found in Osama to the strategic echoes of Life Is Beautiful—makes it feel like a thematic rerun. The stylized cel animation during the fable sequences are so imaginative, the look of “real life” winds up being comparably simplistic, even a little flat. Cartoon Saloon co-founder Nora Twomey’s first solo directing job.

66/100