The Animated Feature contenders: Cheatin'
Thursday, December 11, 2014 at 7:00PM 
Tim here, with another look at one of the lower-profile submissions to the Academy in the Best Animated Feature category. This time around, we’ve got Cheatin’, the sixth feature-length animated movie from Bill Plympton (seven if we count an anthology made of his earlier shorts), one of most iconic names in independent American animation. I will not say that to see his work is to love his work – there’s too much aggressive grotesquerie in his character designs and morbid humor for that to be true – but I do think that it’s pretty hard to imagine anyone watching his beloved Oscar-nominated 2004 short Guard Dog and not walking out a committed fan.
In the meanwhile, we’re here to talk about Cheatin’, and what an absolutely wonderful film it is, too. It would be hard to defend it as Plympton’s best work: his sense of humor works so perfectly in the context of a short, where he can run in, land a few quick sucker punches, and run back out again. But “best” or not, it’s still a stunning work of unexpected emotional complexity and images scratched out in Plympton’s customary aesthetic, looking like delicately-shaded color pencil sketches of distorted, unyielding human forms.
The plot is spare as hell, as it almost needs to be, given that none of the characters ever speak words. Ella, a bookish woman in a yellow sundress, gets into a bumper car accident with Jake, a gas station attendant. They fall madly in love, despite an enormous range of rivals trying to steal him away, and all would be happy, except that one of those rivals tricks Jake into thinking that Ella has been unfaithful. And so, in a misguided rage of injured pride, he starts cheating with every woman he can scrounge up. Ella’s heartbroken response (after an unsuccessful murder attempt) pushes the film into outright fantasy, while spinning a nifty metaphor about the danger of trying to alter one’s own personality to prop up a romantic relationship on the skids.
There is, of course, nothing terribly new or challenging in any of this, and the film makes no attempt to defend itself against charges of oversimplifying gender relationships: men are self-destructive and oversexed, women are sad and insular. But, you know, whatever. The genius of Cheatin’, and I do not in the least hesitate to call it “genius”, lies in the way it teases through this basically familiar arc, both in its visuals and its impeccably-chosen soundtrack of scratchy vintage opera performances. The latter give a feeling of sprawl to the couple’s love affair, lending a classical warmth and elegance that contrasts with the heavily stylized design of the characters to make these bizarre humanoid collections of impossible lines and shapes feel tender and relatable in a deeply surprising way.
Moreover, the drawings themselves are among the most expressive ever produced by Bill Plympton Studios (and one must point out that while Cheatin’ has a tiny crew by the standards of feature animation, it’s pretty enormous by Plympton’s standards), both with the eye-catching use of colors and the range of feeling the artists are able to eke out of character faces without violating the basic rawness and one-note essentialism of the designs.
It’s the best of all worlds, basically: the warped fleshiness and outlandish slapstick violence of Plympton’s films is all still here, but augmented with a delicacy of storytelling and a pureness of emotions that feels like nothing he’s done prior to this. It’s not a film for everybody, but it’s a film that I hope everybody would be willing to try out at least once.
Oscar chances: It’s pretty obvious at this point that of the twenty submissions, six films are seriously in the hunt for five nominations. I’d say that, given Plympton’s name recognition and the unique attitude of his film, Cheatin’ is probably just coming up short in the #7 slot. Let me then take this bully pulpit to declare to whatsoever members of the nominating committee that are reading this: you really do need to check this one out. It’s only 76 minutes of your life, and it’s easily better than at least three of the frontrunners.
Reader Comments (4)
Good to read more about Cheatin'. I've always liked his work so this is intriguing. Now I just need to find out more about his contender for Best Animated Short in Footprints.
seems pretty interesting, but where the hell does one even watch Bill Plympton's stuff? there's a dvd of some of his short work on amazon, but that's about all i could come up with (in an admittedly NOT comprehensive search of the internet).
I am seeing this tonight at the Museum of the Moving Image. I can't wait.
Roark, i know THE TUNE is available in some capacity at least.
Ugh, I always forget to check on what's playing at MOMI. oh well.