I love animation and will always try to seek out animated films whenever I get a chance. So when I saw The Violinist would be at TIFF 2026, I was eager to see it and find out why it made it into this year’s program. While it has some strong moments and relatively good animation at times, The Violinist is an overall disappointment that feels amateurish and meandering for what should have been an exciting journey of love and music at the dawn of the Second World War.
The Violinist starts strong, giving the audience a taste of a love story lost to the tides of time, framed from the point of view of an aging virtuoso telling the story of her musical journey and why she always plays the same violin at every show. It works to set the stage and quickly gives us an idea of the struggles our protagonist has gone through by the time the film starts, but cracks in the experience begin to show early on. While there are some strong sequences, the animation is inconsistent and the story cannot deliver the impact it deserves.
I was engaged early on as we learned about the protagonist, Fei—her life in Singapore, and how a young adopted boy named Kai changes her life in profound ways. Fei is constantly studying to play the violin, and despite her best efforts, she never compares to the greats she only hears about, at least until she starts to get to know Kai, the young adopted child of their live-in maid.
While Fei is good at playing the violin, Kai is on another level and manages to eclipse her in talent with only a few short months of training. They soon find themselves playing music together every chance they get, with the entire city quickly learning about the talent of this young orphan as their skills are showcased in concert theatres, on street corners and everywhere in between.
This segment of The Violinist honestly moves along at a good clip, giving us a better sense of the characters, their motivations and their dreams, all while maintaining a natural flow to the proceedings. Sadly, this progression comes to an abrupt halt when the Japanese invade, and the lives of Singapore’s people are thrown into disarray and horror.
It is at this point that the film loses much of its momentum, and we do not even get to experience the music that has been a central focus up to this point. We learn about the horrors Japanese soldiers inflict on ordinary people in Singapore and how Kai is working behind the scenes to fight against the invasion. There are some good concepts at play, but they often feel disjointed from the main story, with the actions of Kai and Fei feeling worlds apart and the strong connection between them getting lost along the way.
That honestly makes sense and does work to some extent, but the biggest issue I have is with the animation and political messaging, which feel more ham-fisted when dealing with a conflict that cost many people their lives. I think movies are a powerful medium for delivering messages, but they have to be clear and well structured. That was not the case with The Violinist, with many aspects of the movie simply not working or lacking the impact they needed to get the point across.
Honestly, I could have looked past many of these issues if the animation could stand up to the message the film was trying to convey, but that is not the case here. The Violinist does have some amazing moments and strong concepts at play, but for the majority of its runtime, the movie feels more like a discount cartoon than a film screening at one of the most important film festivals in the world. It uses CGI liberally, and the visuals that do stand out feel short-lived within the overall length of the film.
I will admit, the music at the core of The Violinist is striking and elevates what could have been a below-average endeavour into something memorable. There are some striking musical pieces at the core of the film, and hearing them performed alongside some of the better animated moments makes the outing well worth your time. I wish that, with such strong moments, the rest of the film could have risen above the melodrama, but somehow it does not manage to, and the overall film suffers for it.
Ultimately, The Violinist was a miss for me. It had some good ideas but never lived up to its promise. There were some meaningful moments and good concepts at play, but it never managed to deliver a story or concept as a whole that felt compelling for its full runtime, instead becoming more of a slog than a good animated outing. I would have loved to see this become a polished visual exploration of the horrors of war, but The Violinist did not feel up to delivering that message. It is not a total write-off, but as an animated film at TIFF, it did not deliver in the ways it needed to.
