The Breadwinner

The Breadwinner is a 2017 animated drama film by Cartoon Saloon directed by Nora Twomey and executive produced by Mimi Polk Gitlin and Angelina Jolie. Based on the best-selling novel by Deborah Ellis, the film was an international co-production between Canada, Ireland, and Luxembourg, and received a limited release on 17 November 2017.

Plot
Parvana is an 11-year-old girl who lives under Taliban rule in Afghanistan in 2001. After the wrongful arrest of her father, Parvana cuts off her hair and dresses like a boy to support her family. Working alongside a friend, she soon discovers a new world of freedom and danger. Drawing strength from the fantastical stories she invents, Parvana embarks on an epic quest to find her father and reunite her family.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) It's a good take on how the people in Afghanistan lived under Taliban rule.
 * 2) * It's also a realistic take on a distant world.
 * 3) Like all of Cartoon Saloon's films, it has great hand-drawn animation, with vivid detail and such.
 * 4) Every single one of the actors gives off great voice performances.
 * 5) Even though the story's a work of fiction, the way the story is crafted and how well it's executed is enough to leave the viewer stunned.
 * 6) Parvana's brave enough to support her family by disguising as a boy after her father is captured. This can also bring Mulan vibes.
 * 7) The film stays faithful to the best seller of the same name.
 * 8) The film has a better ending than the book.
 * 9) The film added a moral that wasn't present in the book about how stories can educate, inspire, and connect people.
 * 10) While the characters are not ones you care about, the situation they're in can make one feel for them, even compared to live-action movies.
 * 11) It really shows the effects of war, poverty, fundamentalist religion, etc. It's a really honest depiction of Afghan culture.
 * 12) Similar to Persepolis, it's able to go deep into dark themes without seeming way too pretentious.
 * 13) A ton of very sad parts in the movie.
 * 14) Emotional score by Mychael and Jeff Danna.

Reception
On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 95%, based on 101 reviews, with an average rating of 7.9/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "The Breadwinner's stunning visuals are matched by a story that dares to confront sobering real-life issues with uncommon—and richly rewarding—honesty." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 78/100, based on reviews from 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

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