This is "Purl", a new American animated short film that runs for slightly under nine minutes and was directed by Kristen Lester, who is also one of the many writers, surprisingly many for such a short film. It is a Pixar work and while I would like to say I am disappointed by it, I am not really because Pixar did not impress me too much with their recent short film works. Also their Oscar nominee, probably the category's winner, is fairly mediocre gently-speaking. But back to this one here. es it is full of stereotypes. The best example is really how every single male charcater is exchangable and they are basically just included to show how they are all sexist and misogynist. So the best decision by the female protagonist (a ball of wool, how creative to pick a female-centered hobby and the color pink) would have been to look for a job where not everybody is against their gender. or are we supposed to say it is not against men because they startg to like her at some point? I don't know. Another thing I really didn't like was how the female character style-wise looked so completely different in terms of the animation compared to everything else. Well, except the second female character, the yellow one, later on. Story-wise it is pretty simple and superficial too and honestly what was Pixar's biggest strength, namely the emotions it evokes in the audiences, falls completely flat here. The moment when she steps out of the elevator feels contrived and fake like basically everything else about this movie. That also includes the epilogue-like happy ending. And the really nonsensical fact that while she is ignored and unappreciated by everybody early on, she is the big star all of a sudden afterward when she changes her style. Very strange. That's not how it goes and has nothing to do with reality. By the way talking about reality, a new colleague is not discriminated against right away or just left alone with no clue where to go, even if the staff are 100% men, which really isn't the case anywhere anymore either at least in a company that has over 3 or 4 employees. Yeah this was pretty disappointing. You could say that it was Lester's first filmmaking effort as the (wo)man in charge, but that does not really justify or excuse anything because the problem here is hardly the craft, but the almost offensive material, even if there are other weaknesses too. I hope if she gets in charge of a full feature film for Pixar or any other big animated movie company, she will step things up considerably. This one here gets 2 stars out of 5, which is still a bit on the generous side in my opinion and a negative recommendation. Don't watch.
Review of Purl
