Tall Tales
Detailed parental analysis
Funny Little Creatures is a children's animated film with a colourful and musical atmosphere, punctuated by several genuinely stressful moments. The story follows a young cricket who, after a traumatic loss, must journey through an unfamiliar world of insects to return home and face his responsibilities. The film primarily targets school-age children, but certain sequences make it a delicate choice for younger viewers.
Violence
The film contains no graphic violence, but it includes several scenes of genuine tension whose intensity may catch parents off guard. The pursuit by a bat seeking to devour the bee is described by many parents as a genuinely anxiety-inducing moment for young children. More significant on a narrative level, the cricket faces the threat of being sacrificed to the bat, a form of capital punishment that the film treats as an injustice to be opposed. This mechanism serves the film's moral purpose without ever lapsing into gore or visual indulgence, making it a useful point for discussion rather than a simple warning sign.
Underlying Values
The film structures its narrative around friendship, solidarity and the welcoming of strangers, values conveyed without heavy-handed didacticism. It also offers an implicit but discernible critique of capital punishment, rendering the cricket's condemnation manifestly unjust and making his liberation a collective triumph. This is an angle the film does not explain directly but which children naturally grasp, making it an interesting opening for post-viewing conversation about justice and punishment.
Social Themes
The main character's trauma, stemming from feeling responsible for the death of his siblings, introduces an emotional dimension weightier than what the genre typically offers. This guilt generates moments of melancholy and apathy that may perplex very young viewers, but which give the film an emotional depth rare for the genre. Grief and responsibility are handled here with a certain narrative restraint, without easy resolution.
Strengths
The film succeeds in weaving together a brisk and musical adventure that keeps young viewers engaged whilst offering them genuine emotions, something many children's productions deliberately avoid. The cricket's emotional arc, marked by guilt and loss, is treated with a sincerity that explains children's enthusiasm upon leaving the cinema: they have experienced something, not merely watched a succession of events. The implicit critique of capital punishment is sufficiently embedded in the narrative to provoke thought without ever weighing down the film.
Age recommendation and discussion points
The film is not recommended for children under 7 years of age due to scenes of tension and the emotional weight of grief and guilt, and is thoroughly suitable from age 7 onwards. Two discussion angles are worth pursuing after viewing: ask the child whether the punishment inflicted on the cricket seemed fair to them, and why, then invite them to consider what the hero might have done differently in facing the guilt he felt.
Synopsis
When Apollo, a kindhearted cricket, lands in the village of the Funny Little Bugs, the whole kingdom is about to be disrupted.
About this title
- Format
- Feature film
- Year
- 2017
- Runtime
- 1h 17m
- Countries
- France, Luxembourg
- Original language
- FR
- Studios
- Bidibul Productions, France 3 Cinéma
Content barometer
- Violence2/5Moderate
- Fear3/5Notable tension
- Sexuality0/5None
- Language0/5None
- Narrative complexity1/5Accessible
- Adult themes0/5None
Values conveyed
- Courage
- Friendship
- Acceptance of difference
- Forgiveness
- teamwork
- loyalty