When you’re raising a kid, there are times when you over promise something and can’t blow it off. Perhaps you promised to take the kid to an upcoming concert only to discover it sold out in three minutes. Instead of face value tickets, you’re staring at resale ticket prices that might equal your month’s rent. Other times it’s swearing you’ll take a trip together without realizing you’ve burned your vacation days. No matter you promised, you have to figure out how to make it happen since the last thing you want is your “you have to be honest” speech interrupted with all the times you lied. Chicken For Linda! is about a parent desperately trying to live up to a promise they made to their child.
Linda (Melinée Leclerc) is a young child being raised by her single mother Paulette (Clotilde Hesme). One day Linda plays with her mother’s ring before school. The mom freaks out and tells her to put it back which Linda does. However, that evening Paulette can’t find the ring and freaks out even more. She punishes Linda for losing the ring. Instead of a sleepover with her friend, she gets stuck with her Aunt Astrid (Laetitia Dosch). When Paulette comes home from a date, she discovers what really happened to the ring. She feels so guilty that she rushes over to Astrid’s house, wakes up Linda and promises she’ll do anything to make it up. All Linda wants Chicken and Peppers for dinner. This holds a significance with her late father. While this meal seems like a little thing, it gets too much for Paulette quick. First is that Paulette can’t cook. She’s a microwave dinner mom. Secondly comes when she goes shopping since this is France and a general strike has been called to support a different strike. That means not a supermarket or small grocery store is open in the area. Paulette can’t forget her promise and goes to extremes to try to get that special meal made for her daughter.
Chicken For Linda! does an amazing job at taking a small domestic moment and letting it snowball out of control. The comedy comes from how fast things hit extreme levels. Not to give too much away, but a cop gets involved and there’s a neighborhood riot.
It feels like the movie was shot live action and painted over. There’s a fluidity to the animation on the screen. The figures are rather abstract and monotone. Linda is yellow while her mother is a dark orange. The slapstick nature of the scenes plays better in this undefined space especially scenes involving a live chicken. A real or even normal animated chicken would distract from the wildness. Making it feel even more like a live movie turned animation is that voices sound like they were recorded in the spaces featured on the screen including classrooms and the back of a truck. This isn’t the audio captured inside the usual sound booth. While Chicken For Linda! might be considered a kid’s movie; this is the perfect comedy for a parent to enjoy once they fulfill that promise made to their own kid.
Chicken For Linda! is currently available on all major digital platforms
GKIDS and Shout! Studios present Chicken For Linda! Directed by Chiara Malta & Sébastien Laudenbach. Screenplay by Chiara Malta & Sébastien Laudenbach. Starring the Voices of Melinée Leclerc, lotilde Hesme, Laetitia Dosch, Estéban Patrick Pineau, Claudine Acs & Jean-Marie Fonbonne. Running Time: 76 Minutes. Rating: Not Rated. Release Date: July 2, 2024.
