{"id":3377,"date":"2026-07-01T16:10:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T16:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=3377"},"modified":"2026-07-01T16:10:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T16:10:15","slug":"lucy-lost-review-a-winsome-family-animation-with-welcome-narrative-complexity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=3377","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Lucy Lost\u2019 Review: A Winsome Family Animation With Welcome Narrative Complexity"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<!-- do not apply CSS styles to this element! --><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>\n\tFrom the blockbuster stage and screen iterations of \u201cWar Horse\u201d to the underseen \u201cWhen the Whales Came\u201d to the recent, BAFTA-winning \u201cKensuke\u2019s Kingdom,\u201d the books of English author Michael Morpurgo have reliably made for sturdy, literate family films of a comfortingly old-fashioned stripe. That streak continues with \u201cLucy Lost.\u201d A handsome and emotionally involving wartime adventure cleverly adapted from Morpurgo\u2019s 2014 book \u201cListen to the Moon,\u201d the film marks a most promising feature directing debut for French animator Olivier Clert, who brings a pleasingly cosmopolitan sensibility to a story set predominantly on Britain\u2019s remote, tranquil Isles of Scilly.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=3375\">\u2018Got Milk?\u2019 Docuseries, Looking at Impact of Iconic Marketing Campaign, Acquired by Documentary+ (EXCLUSIVE)<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n\tFollowing a well-received premiere as a special screening in Cannes, followed by a main competition slot in Annecy, this French-language work has the potential to resonate with young audiences globally, given the right distribution and multilingual dubbing. English-language backers may be inclined toward star voice casting, but would do well to honor the rich regional specificities of the film\u2019s setting \u2014 as Clert has done in the film\u2019s gorgeously rendered landscapes, frequently lit like an English Romantic painting. The director was previously a creative consultant on Netflix\u2019s \u201cKlaus\u201d and a storyboard artist on \u201cLittle Am\u00e9lie or the Character of Rain\u201d; \u201cLucy Lost\u201d bears some tonal resemblance to the latter, though it\u2019s more broadly accessible, with a visual style clearly influenced by vintage Studio Ghibli, particularly in its character design.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThere are echoes of Ghibli\u2019s \u201cWhen Marnie Was There,\u201d too, in the film\u2019s story, a growingly sophisticated construction that begins as a simple, bucolic portrait of childhood isolation, before its timeline splits, flips and is realigned in quite surprising fashion. The structural liberties taken with Morpurgo\u2019s text by Clert and co-writer Helen Blakeman pay off cinematically, though children much younger than the book\u2019s preteen target audience may be left a little adrift.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe year is 1915, and while the First World War may be raging in Europe, the sleepy Isles of Scilly \u2014 off England\u2019s Cornish coastline \u2014 seem distantly removed from the conflict. Still, its reverberations are felt by the locals, particularly regarding the mysterious backstory of Lucy (voiced by Charlie Rosenzweig), a frail 11-year-old girl whose hair has been bleached white by trauma, and who is repeatedly visited by hallucinations. Not all of them are disturbing: One is an ebullient imaginary friend her age named Milly (also Rosenzweig), who claims to be visiting across time and space from her home in America. <\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=3373\">\u2018The Sopranos\u2019 Creator, Former James Bond Casting Director, and Producers of \u2018Nomadland\u2019 and \u2018Hurt Locker\u2019 Headline Karlovy Vary Industry Discussions<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n\tMilly is also the only friend Lucy has, bar her protective older brother Alfie (Zach Valentin-Dattas). Their parents, Mary (Jessica Monceau) and Jim (Quentin Faure), insist on keeping her at home and away from other children, claiming she needs to recover from an unspecified accident; cruel rumors circulate through the community that the mostly housebound child is a witch. One type of social prejudice expands into another as the film\u2019s scattered narrative fragments gradually come together. \u201cLucy Lost\u201d is slow to show its hand in its gently paced first half, but that\u2019s no bad thing: Clert gives patient viewers time to invest in these variously damaged or repressed characters before boldly reconfiguring their relationship to each other, and ours to them.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tSimple line creations, with wide eyes and large heads atop spindly bodies, the characters are appealingly if not very distinctively drawn, but the world they inhabit is realized with rather more depth and texture: Clert is attentive to the region\u2019s grassy natural beauty and the mineral-slate palette of its sky and sea alike, while local flora and fauna are evocatively woven into Lucy\u2019s island exploits when she does venture outdoors. Musically, meanwhile, Anne-Sophie Versnaeyen\u2019s lovely score ranges from sparse, lilting strings to a full orchestral sweep as the story builds in scale and scope, somehow swelling from soft village parable to hefty historical fiction, even taking in the famous sinking of the Lusitania. How Clert\u2019s ambitious adaptation achieves this, in under 90 minutes to boot, is best experienced in real time.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=3371\">\u2018Gomorrah\u2019 and \u2018The Young Pope\u2019 Producer Nils Hartmann Steps Down as Executive Vice President of Sky Studios Italy<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>French animator Olivier Clert&#8217;s debut feature &#8216;Lucy Lost&#8217; is stylistically indebted to Studio Ghibli, but its storytelling is more surprising.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2339,3,2781,2782],"class_list":["post-3377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","tag-annecy-animated-film-festival","tag-cannes-film-festival","tag-lucy-lost","tag-oliver-clert"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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