Flow Will Teach You How To Be Human

Flow, from Latvian director-writing pair Gints Zilbalodis and Matiss Kaza, is an absolutely creative, stunningly beautiful original animated feature. When horrific floods drown the world as these creatures know it, a cat, a capibara, a lemur, a bird, and a golden retriever must set aside their natural, animalistic instincts to learn how to survive. Without a single line of dialogue, the movie takes you on an emotional journey through the eyes of stray animals bonded by each lacking community during harrowing circumstances.

On the surface, Flow is a climate change allegory. Small details in the film’s first act indicate that humans were once in this world. There’s no saying what happened to those humans or why the floods are coming, but smartly, the movie isn’t interested in answering those questions. We all know the likelihood of climate-induced catastrophe, its human-made causes, and what needs to be done to prevent it. While those questions are a tad distracting for a length of the film upon first watch, Flow just isn’t interested in going through those motions.

Instead, Flow is about how essential it is to see the humanity in one another, band together for survival, and yes, cast out those who would ensure your doom. Each animal in Flow, anthropomorphized just slightly to help the audience lock into an otherwise challenging story structure, has a specific lesson to teach the group and, by proxy, the audience in these harrowing times. Curiosity doesn’t always kill the cat.

Loyalty to your friends is an essential trait. Community, culture, and pride in it are important, but not at the expense of other people and justice for all. The little things in life are worth taking the time to notice, even in difficult times. And sometimes, survival goals shift, and going with their flow is how you can thrive.

Any other version of Flow where the animals talk or where humanity has a stronger footprint would likely be a disservice compared to the beauty this picture brings as it is. And this picture is a beauty. The level of craft designing the creatures and their world is quite like anything else. At first, it runs into a bit of an uncanny valley. If you try to look too closely at the details in an animal’s fur, it starts feeling like a PlayStation 3 cutscene. However, on a macro level, the animation style is unique amongst a medium that has become so same-y over the years.

And when the movie goes to unexpected places in the story, the visuals follow. The most incredible visual moments come every time you least expect a major turning point in the movie. Flow has a keen sense of when to give just a little bit of human characteristic to the animals’ movements and personalities. For the most part, a cat is a cat, but every now and then, a cat will do something a little extraordinary to make them feel more relatable. While this sometimes contributes to the movie’s uncanniness on a textual level, it always delivers seamlessly in the visuals.

Flow is a simple, thrilling, and thought-inducing movie. Its strange cast of nearly silent characters may all be animals, but their traits will teach you how to be human. Every step in their journey begs you to ask how you would act in similar circumstances. And because the movie never over-explains those circumstances, you’re left with an eerie feeling that it may not be long before humanity has to confront these same questions of belonging, community, and survival ourselves.

Flow is in select theaters November 22nd and opens wide December 6th.