“THE BREADWINNER” My rating: C+
94 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13
The animation resume of Nora Twomey (“Song of the Sea,” “The Secret of Kells”) is heavy on splendid visuals and meandering stories.
That pattern holds true in “The Breadwinner,” an adaptation of Deborah Ellis’ young adult novel about an Afghan girl who survives the Taliban’s reign of terror by posing as a boy.
The film is heavy on social relevance but quickly loses its narrative way. Even moments that should be devastating come off as tepid.
Each day eleven-year-old Parvana (Saara Chaudry) accompanies her father, a former teacher who lost a leg fighting the Russians, to the central market of Kabul where they attempt to sell a few family possessions, including a beautiful red dress which Parvana will now never get to wear. There they run afoul of Taliban bullies who maintain that no woman — not even a prepubescent girl — should be seen in public.
When Parvana’s father stands up for her, he is dragged away to prison. This leaves the remaining family members — including Parvana’s mother, older sister and baby brother — in a desperate situation. Without a man to support them they face starvation. Parvana risks arrests or beating just venturing outside to get water from a nearby well.
Sneaking around the bazaar one day our heroine meets an old school mate, a girl named Shauzia who has cut her hair and adopted a man’s name. Parvana follows suit, and soon the two are working odd jobs; she’s proud to be her family’s breadwinner.
But discovery and punishment are never far from her mind, which may be why she concentrates more on simple survival than exploiting the privileges afforded by her new maleness.
“The Breadwinner” features a story within a story. Parvana is a born storyteller, and she amuses herself and family members by spinning out a fantasy about a young man whose village is beset by monsters and his efforts to reclaim the seeds vital to the community’s survival. Clearly, this is a metaphor for the situation facing Afghan women.
In contrast to the gray and brown palette of the “real world” sequences, these fantasy moments are bursting with color. Too bad, then, that the story Parvana relates lacks any immediacy. It feels like a time killer, and that feeling of inconsequence seeps over to the rest of the film as well.
It’s a case of a great message delivered in lackadaisical style.
| Robert W. Butler
Butler's Cinema Scene 