Chicken for Linda!
Written and Directed by Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach
Starring Mélinée Leclerc, Clotilde Hesme, and Laetitia Dosch
Unrated
Runtime: 1 hour, 16 minutes
In theaters April 19

by Megan Robinson, Staff Writer

Chicken for Linda! is about mess. The messes we make and clean up, the messy people we all are deep down, and the messy emotions we face every single day. Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach’s animated film is defined by the disorder of life, from its farcical plot to its sketchy art style that allows characters to move freely as blobs of vibrant color, their shapes contorting the same way a ball bounces up and down in a flip book of simple drawings. There is nothing more beautiful in this world than the understanding that, universally, everyone is making a mess just to reach goals that might seem simple on the outside, but mean more than anyone can verbally express. That’s what animation is for.

Linda (Mélinée Leclerc) obsesses over her mother’s ring, loving it since infancy. For her widowed mother Paulette (Clotilde Hesme), Linda’s constant pestering for the ring is anxiety-inducing; after all, it was a gift to Paulette from her husband and Linda’s father that she doesn’t want to take any chances losing. When Paulette thinks Linda has snuck the ring out to school and traded it for her friend’s beret, the grieving mother goes into a frenzy, even slapping the young child. Paulette, though, finds the ring in a mess of cat puke back home and, to make up for punishing the child, agrees to cook chicken and peppers, just like Dad used to make. A general strike, however, sends them on a wild chicken chase and thrusts them into the lives of many colorful characters.

Right from the start, one might think that Chicken for Linda! will be an emotional film, tugging at the heartstrings with the simple setup that Linda’s father died at the dinner table, leaving Paulette to raise Linda herself. Grief runs through the film, but it does so in much the same way that it operates in real life — it controls everything you do and say, but it also sits on the backburner, becoming something you grow around, not out of. Linda lives an ordinary life, with plenty of friends in her housing project, and Paulette must concern herself with the kitchen sink leaking and finding the time to go out on the town. A chicken with peppers dinner is just as ordinary as the lives they lead, but it also gets them into a heap of trouble as their obsession is born out of grief and longing. Desperate to remember, they stop at no lengths to gather all the ingredients and cook that meal that reminds them of the one they’ve lost.

The cast of characters in the film is equally as compelling as the two leads. Astrid (Laetitia Dosch) goes from annoyed aunt to almost an antagonist, her frustrations with little sister Paulette running deep. Linda’s friends Annette (Scarlett Cholleton), Carmen (Alenza Dus), and Afia (Anais Weller) each provide laughs in their own attempts to secure this dinner — from Carmen roasting the peppers all day to Annette’s fridge being stocked to the brim with meat to Afia being dragged by her dog as he chases anything he can. More and more people from Paris become involved in the plot to get, or stop, this chicken dinner from being made, with each bump in the road providing more laughs than the last.

One of the biggest strengths of Chicken for Linda! though, is its sense of humor. The increasingly absurd plot is helped by having down-to-earth comedy balance it out, where every mishap or misunderstanding is as funny and realistic as it can be. The children’s overeager attitudes and, at times, insensitivities, are reflective of actual children and keep the laughs coming. Every new set piece and confused character that comes along for the ride breathes life into the film. It’s not after the vivacious bellylaughs conjured up by elaborate comedies, but instead the smiles and laughs that remind you of your youth, of the kinds of things the other kids around you would say that would brighten your day and make you giggle.

Of course, the film also has a big, warm heart at its center, anchoring the messiness of the plot. It’s often the simplest films that can leave the biggest impact, or elicit the most tears, and Chicken for Linda! does just that. It takes a village to raise a baby, and a whole housing project (and then some) to cook a dinner for a young girl who misses her dad. As the film goes on, it seems like no one can do anything right, every escalation keeping that dinner out of reach. But that mess is integral to cooking, after all — it’s the universality of our own mistakes, failures, and grief that creates a community of love and life. The smells and taste of chicken and peppers remind Linda of her father; just as well, Chicken for Linda! reminds us of when we were children, but also the things we do for the ones we love. Anarchy leads to creation, strikes lead to innovation, and grief leads to love, holding on to what you still have tight and never wanting to disappoint it.

Chicken for Linda! is an exceptional film that is just as much for children as it is for adults. In a tight runtime, the film is able to rush across Paris and provide plenty of laughs on the way. It embraces the imperfect beauty of disorder through its plot, characters, and animation, creating realistic portraits of the world through simple colors and backgrounds but complex movements and nuanced inner worlds. At some points, it feels like it just might run out of breath, but sticks the landing when it finally inhales, relaxes, and serves a delicious meal of a film.