Charlotte

Based on true events, Charlotte, which unfolds during the Second World War, follows a Jewish artist (Keira Knightley’s Charlotte Salomon) as she attempts to complete an insanely ambitious project involving over 1000 paintings. Filmmakers Eric Warin and Tahir Rana deliver a mostly-engaging animated endeavor that benefits rather substantially from its beautiful, sporadically jaw-dropping visuals and smattering of excellent voice performances, with, in terms of the latter, Knightley’s stirring turn as the thoroughly sympathetic central character matched by an eclectic roster of such periphery players as Brenda Blethyn, Eddie Marsan, and Jim Broadbent. There’s little doubt, as well, that Charlotte‘s consistently watchable vibe is perpetuated and heightened by a narrative that boasts its fair share of absorbing sequences, which ensures that the few lulls that crop up along the way aren’t nearly as problematic as one might’ve anticipated. The end result is a first-class animated picture that efficiently (and artfully) tells an interesting and heartrending story to predominately compelling effect, and it’s clear, ultimately, that the directors have deftly (and superbly) managed to shine a light on an intriguing yet undeniably lesser-known WWII-era figure.

*** out of ****