150 Word Review: 'Flow' (2024)
Don't rock the boat
Trigger warning: feline peril. Directed by Gints Zilbalodis, Flow is an animated fable from Latvia about a beautiful world without humans that is slowly drowning and a cat who escapes rising waters by hitching a ride on a boat full of other animals. I am not a 'cat person' but the kitty in Flow may change my mind.
It is always a pleasure to watch animated movies developed outside Hollywood studios like Pixar and DreamWorks, which both occasionally produce wonderful fantasies. But Flow is not your standard desperate-to-please multiplex matinee time waster—there are no funny voices or pop songs written by Lin-Manuel Miranda. There isn't dialogue or music, actually, just the sounds of water and wind and the creaking of a boat. The CGI is dream-like and realistic, and each critter is endearing, including a serene capybara. This is a melancholy vision of the apocalypse, only there is hope.