French animation studios continue to wow me. Since Netflix’s Arcane with Fortiche Production SAS took the world by storm, I had to see what Maybe Movies and Ikki Films were cooking up with Little Amélie or the Character of Rain. There are a handful of other animated films on the TIFF 2025 docket, but this one stood out to me in its very stylistic animation and art techniques. After a short 78-minute runtime, I was dripping with tears.
The world is a perplexing, peaceful mystery to Amélie until a miraculous encounter with chocolate ignites her wild sense of curiosity. As she develops a deep attachment to her family’s housekeeper, Nishio-san, Amélie discovers the wonders of nature as well as the emotional truths hidden beneath the surface of her family’s idyllic life as foreigners in post-war Japan.
Adapted from the autobiographical novel by Amélie Nothomb and brought to life in the completely original animated style of directors Mailys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han, Little Amélie or the Character of Rain tells a tender, poignant, and visually stunning story about the healing power of human connection. Central to the film’s premise is the Japanese belief that children under age three are akin to gods, though one could also link it to the psychological claim that newborns cannot distinguish between themselves and their surroundings.
The pastel artwork immediately popped out to me, dazzling with all its colours smacking me in the face. Amélie’s journey for the six months leading up to her third birthday captured the essence of how time works differently for young children—going as far as mixing grief and trauma in this story. Melting in the adult themes was a very Hayao Miyazaki move that got me in my feelings.
French master animator Rémi Chayé worked on this film’s layouts. Even days after watching this film, I am still pondering about some of the shots Little Amélie or the Character of Rain accomplished. It was so smart to cover all four seasons in Japan, allowing the animators to use so many colours during each season change—flexing what they could show with cherry blossoms or snow-covered landscapes. Another Miyazaki-inspired concept baked into this film was the deliciously drawn food. I wanted to grab the Belgian white chocolate off the screen!
“Even days after watching this film, I am still pondering about some of the shots Little Amélie or the Character of Rain accomplished.”
Little Amélie or the Character of Rain’s biggest strength was how it executed the perfect beats of a typical toddler’s life. This movie captured the first time a toddler meets their grandmother and loves them for some unexplained reason. This film took the visual imagination of a child loving the taste of chocolate for the first time to the max, showing how Amélie registered the white chocolate as gold.
There were two of the biggest animation muscle flexing moments in Little Amélie or the Character of Rain. One of them was near the beginning of the movie when the dad opens a frosted window. The paint splotches style masterfully captured glass distortions to match this art style; nothing felt like the animators got lazy in animating hard or easy details. Another animation flex was when Amélie passed a jar on a table, and it animated her magnified perfectly as if a real person passed by it.
One of the most unique aspects of this movie was how it blended Belgian/French language and culture with Japanese language and culture around the 1980s. Little Amélie or the Character of Rain’s composer Mari Fukuhara worked with European instruments like the violin, with traditional Japanese instruments such as the shamisen. The two different cultures clashed and meshed well together. It tackled some issues revolving around the bitter resentments from some Japanese citizens against foreigners living in their country post-World War II.
The only abstract logic in Little Amélie or the Character of Rain was how Amélie thought she was genuinely God incarnate until she was two and a half years old. I did not expect to get biblical references throughout this movie. For audiences who generally do not subscribe to religion or Christianity, they should not feel like these themes are in their face. The visual storytelling outweighs these references.
For those looking for a new animated film reminding us what it means to be a kid and to treasure our lives, check out Little Amélie or The Character of Rain, especially at TIFF 2025.
