On 23 January 2022, I watched the Spanish adult animated movie Chico and Rita – the first Spanish animated film to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature.
Directed by Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal, and Tono Errando, and released in 2010 by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Spain in Europe, Icon Film Distribution in the USA, Chico and Rita tells the all-too-familiar, bittersweet story of two young star-crossed lovers. However, it does so via a very novel, unusual, and extremely colourful style of animation, and is wonderfully accompanied throughout by the jazz and bebop music prevalent in Havana and New York from the mid-1940s to early 1960s.
Here the lovers are pianist Chico (voiced by Eman Xor Oña) and singer Rita (Limara Meneses), both very talented but living in the slums of Havana, Cuba, during the mid-1940s. Both have the chance to better themselves, but Chico strays, tempted by former girlfriend Juana, whereas Rita stays focused and after being let down so badly by Chico allows herself to be whisked off to New York by wealthy businessman Ron (Lenny Mandel), who turns her into a major success, first on stage as a musicals star and then in Hollywood as a movie star.
Chico, meanwhile, regrets his foolishness and never stops loving her, but she is now in a different league to him, though eventually he achieves success himself as a pianist for major jazz band leaders, such as Dizzy Gillespie. Finally they meet up again and plan to marry that same evening in Las Vegas, but Ron bribes Chico's less than wealthy friend Ramon to plant drugs on him. The cops are called, and Chico is deported back to Cuba, without Rita knowing why he never showed up in Las Vegas. Disillusioned with her life, she ends her own showbiz career and vanishes from public life.
Forty-seven years later, Chico is a near-penniless shoe-shiner back in the slums of Havana where he began – until, unexpectedly, his most famous song, one that he wrote all those years ago for Rita, is rediscovered by a young modern-day singer, who tracks him down, and records a modern version of it with him, which proves so popular that they both win a Grammy. Suddenly Chico is famous again, and with his new wealth he returns to the States, determined to track down Rita.
But is it too late for Chico even to find Rita now, let alone stand a chance of rekindling their love from almost half a century ago? Watch it and see.
Chico and Rita is an inordinately moving, engrossing movie, and plays out rather like an animated La La Land (which I also adored), although its ending is different. As a movie in which music plays such a major part, it features classic compositions by the likes of Thelonious Monk, Cole Porter, and Dizzy Gillespie, as well as an original soundtrack written by Cuban band leader/composer/pianist Bebo Valdés.
My one quibble is why a movie in which white jackets, suits, and tuxedos fill the screen so frequently also chooses to produce its on-screen English subtitles in white, the inevitable result being that it is often impossible to discern them fully before they vanish. Red or some other bright colour would have been so much better.
Still, Chico and Rita is unquestionably a great movie – and just in case you're wondering, it lost the Oscar for Best Animated Feature to Rango (which I've also reviewed on Shuker In MovieLand – click here to read it). Happily, however, it deservedly triumphed in the same category at the European Film Awards.
If you'd like to experience a sultry, jazz-imbued introduction to the intoxicating rhythms, ever-changing moods, and raw emotions filling every animated frame of this superb, unforgettable film, be sure to click here to watch an official Chico and Rita trailer on YouTube.
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