bob the moo
With this title in mind, the film opens with a young couple (brightly colored in cheerful CGI animation) moving in together for the first time, full of fun, spark, live and playfulness. One thing leads to another and they decide to get married and start a family together – changing everything. Being honest, as I started, the mood was so upbeat and cheerful that I thought this would just be some disposable fluffy animation which is fleeting, shows off the animators' skills but is forgettable to the casual viewer. Within a few minutes I was proved wrong.What we get is a journey through life with the couple, but done with a cynical view of reality where the stress of life is a conveyor belt where they are running just to keep up and spending their time stressed and angry at one another, with the children being difficult and things that once were attractive about one another long since turned into irritations. The pace of life is well shown by the two characters running down the treadmill while we get scenes from down the years that ring true as the characters age and their attitudes change. It sounds simple but it is really well done as it is all visual, with no dialogue but yet it works and you feel for the characters and their lives.The quality of the animation is really high, OK not quite Pixar but coming out of art school it is impressive in the detail, the invention and the overall flow. The conclusion is quite sobering when it reaches the end of the road but the ending is open to hope or really several morals that you could take from it depending on what you wish to take. As a short animation though it is really smart – delivering something much more engaging, honest and intelligent than the sappy romance it appeared to be at the start.
