27/02/2023 - BERLINALE 2023: Enzo d’Alò’s animation is bound to find its audience – but not at film festivals

It’s a bit confusing as to why Enzo d’Alò’s A Greyhound of a Girl [+see also:
trailer
film profile] – based on a novel by Roddy Doyle – made it all the way to the Berlinale, where it got an airing as a Generation Kplus participant. Not because it’s bad, but because it’s not a film for a festival audience. Even its animation technique, a bit too simple to stun, would be much better served by a smaller screen.

After all, it’s already referencing TV anyway – little Mary loves to cook and is initially shown fighting with snotty food critics who argue that the “soufflé is a let-down”. If that screams The Great Irish Bake Off, another scene is so similar to Ratatouille that it’s a bit too close for comfort. It’s just not satisfying, and it makes one hungry as well. Even for that suspicious soufflé.

Is there a sweetness to this film, even though it lacks originality and a distinct style? Of course there is. It’s a good-natured story about saying goodbye, about finding your own voice instead of echoing someone else’s fears – even when you care for them deeply. It could make that difficult conversation, a conversation about someone’s imminent death, a little bit simpler for parents.

That’s what Mary has to accept as well – her beloved Granny is sick. They won’t be able to cook, and they won’t have that much time together any more, and knowing this makes things hard, also for her stressed-out mother. But Mary soon makes a new friend, one that’s a bit older and dresses quite oddly, but seems to know a whole lot about her crazy family of freckled redheads. In other words, it’s time to get Granny out of that hospital, also because the food there just sucks, and head off for a road trip with ghosts.

The voice cast is game – Brendan Gleeson reassuringly mumbles his way through the film – but you can’t help wishing for more, with the only truly interesting subplot being Mary’s inexplicable hatred of dogs – dogs! – although she will eventually come to terms with that, too. It’s funny how traumas, especially those that have never been resolved, keep circulating within families. To break the pattern means to address it, to say why something hurt so badly, and then let it go. It’s easier to do it together, suggests d’Alò, showing generations of women finally offering each other some peace and support, rather than disapproval. And giving those poor dogs a break.

A Greyhound of a Girl was produced by Paul Thiltges Distributions (Luxembourg), Aliante (Italy), Jam Media (Ireland), GOAG Production (UK), Rija Films (Latvia), Amrion Production (Estonia) and Fish Blowing Bubbles (Germany). GFM Animation is in charge of its international sales.