Movie Info
Movie Name: Chico & Rita
Studio: Fernando Truebo PC
Genre(s): Animated/Musical/Romance/Drama
Release Date(s): September 4, 2010 (Telluride Film Festival)
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Oh yeah, I’m gonna get me some of that!
During a night out with his friend Ramón in Havana in 1948, Chico meets someone who will change his life. Singer Rita finds herself at odds with Rico immediately, but their love for music soon turns into a love story itself. Stretching from Cuba to New York City, Hollywood to Las Vegas and eventually spanning the world, Rita and Chico’s love will faces challenges that it might not be able to endure.
Directed by Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal, and Tono Errando, Chico & Rita is an animated musical romance. The film was released to critical acclaim and received a nomination for Best Animated Feature, but the film lost to Rango.
These signs would mean something to me if I knew English…
Chico & Rita is not for everyone. The unrated animated film has nudity, swearing, and is definitely targeted for adults. In a world of flashy 3D computer animated films, Chico & Rita is a throwback to older films, but the style and story are more of a reimagining of classic animation.
The story for Chico & Rita is a pretty classic love story. That aspect of the script is rather predictable, but it is the rich time period that the story spans that makes the simple love story an interesting one. The script encompasses real figures in jazz and Hollywood. People like Nat King Cole, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Marlon Brando cameo in the story and people like Chano Pozo factor directly into it.
Ahhh…you taste like Polydent
Chico and Rita are a very typical “celebrity” couple in that they are rather toxic together. Rico is plagued with doubt and insecurity about their relationship and Rita has the challenge of being a foreign celebrity in a time when foreigners and other races weren’t accepted. The social aspect of the love story builds with the setting and the music.
The animation of the film also is very stylized. The movie does feature computer animation, but it is blended with a rather classic painted style. The movie characters move with the music and the smooth jazz of the film becomes a character itself.
Chico & Rita is a movie for adults and that is tricky when dealing with animation. Many “adult” animated films are comedies or action…Chico & Rita is neither and that makes finding the arget audience somewhat tricky. The people that will most appreciate the film might steer clear of an animated movie and that is a shame because Chico & Rita deserves a chance to be seen.
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