How do I review Boy and the World? The Oscar-nominated animated movie was not made for me, that’s for sure. I’m not exactly sure who it was made for. It’s the type of animated movie I simply don’t like, to no real fault of the director, animators or crew. It’s just not my cup of tea, and I’m not exactly sure whose cup of tea it is.

Boy and the World is artistic, there’s no denying it. The main character—and in fact all of the characters—is a stick figure, a boy with a little T-shirt and dots for eyes. As he goes on a quest for his father, he’s transported from one surreal spot to the next, a collage of images and animation that sort of exist in the literal world, and sort of don’t. Something is always happening, the world that this boy travels through is always changing, evolving, and writer/director Alê Abreu should be commended for establishing a brisk pace that taps deep into his mind’s eye.

The characters speak, but just barely, and what they speak is nonsense—it is, in essence, a silent film. And frankly, for most of the movie, I had no idea what was going on. I mean, I did, sort of, but I didn’t really care enough to really comprehend what I was watching. And yet I sort of comprehended that Abreu at some point was going to insert live footage of the world going to shit, because inevitably movies like this have to have some purpose.

To be blunt, Boy and the World would have worked better as a short film, 15 minutes top, an experimentation in art and animation and storytelling. Hell, the movie would work better as a children’s book, too.

But it’s not. It’s 80 minutes long, and it gets repetitive quickly. It’s not entertaining, but then again, it’s not meant to be. It’s meant to be an expression of art, in that regard, it succeeds. Sadly, when I watch movies, I don’t want to spend over an hour of my life watching a moving expression—I want to be entertained. Call me unsophisticated. Say I don’t get it. Oscar voters clearly did, although maybe they just voted for it to feel sophisticated, too.

The thing is, I get that Boy and the World wasn’t made to satiate me. The director accomplished what he set out to accomplish—whatever that was—and for that reason it’s hard for me to come down too hard on the film. Then again, maybe I already have.

Review by Erik Samdahl unless otherwise indicated.