Cheatin'

A few years ago, my oldest daughter invited me to go along with her to New York ComicCon....usually not the sort of place I'd choose to hang out for a few days, as I really hate crowds. Most of the comic book guests and video games didn't interest me very much and I was resigned to just walking about the convention center...bored to tears. That is, until I learned that Bill Plympton HIMSELF was going to be there! I have been a major Plympton fan...and I would now have a chance to meet him! I am sure it wasn't necessarily the highlight of Mr. Plympton's ComicCon experience, but it certainly was for me. I not only got a chance to talk with him but to get a couple nice drawings and autographs. A year later, my daughter met Mr. Plympton again...and this time she bought me one of his amazing books and even had him draw a picture of me inside! This is something I'll definitely treasure.

Why am I telling you this? Well, I just wanted you to know that this is NOT an unbiased review. No, I have a very strong bias towards his wonderful and weird sense of humor and his one of a kind hand-drawn animation. After all, in this age of fancy CGI, you normally don't expect to see an entire cartoon animated with colored pencil drawings...but they work very well. And his bizarre sense of humor in shorts such as Guide Dog, Hot Dog as well as One of Those Days make his cartoons something you won't soon forget.

Bill's latest is a full-length animated film called Cheatin'. It debuts on April 3rd in theaters and will be released on the internet through Vimeo on Demand on April 21st....and I strongly suggest you see it. However, it is very different from his hilarious short films. Instead, Cheatin' is an amazingly surreal and occasionally absurd sort of love story. To understand, you just have to see it to get the full effect. His characters never talk and it's amazing how much feeling they actually convey through grunts, sighs and moans. And, speaking of moans, this love story is NOT for kids...nope, definitely not. There is nudity, a decent amount of cartoon sex and a plot that isn't the best thing for younger audience members. However, it did work in the story and didn't seem gratuitous...most of the time.

The bottom line is that even if you have seen the Plympton shorts, you may be taken totally by surprise by Cheatin'--I know I was. It's incredibly artistic, the music is AMAZING and the film very sentimental and, at times, touching and hilarious. It's a strange confection...but one I would like to see more of from the Plymptoons folks-- especially because it's so unlike what we would normally think of when we think of a cartoon. It's more...an experience.

After a chance encounter involving bumper cars, Ella, a woman normally engrossed in books, and Jake, a muscular gas station attendant, have sparks fly literally and fall in love. However a misunderstanding engineered by a jealous women creates a rift between the two and Jake starts cheatin'. That is the gist of the story without too much elaboration and no spoilers.

This tale is very beautifully and poetically told with no actual spoken words and portrays the highs and lows of relationships with great depth and much humor. It is not a children's cartoon in either what it shows visually or its themes - that is, it is about things that concern adults, and it is not just about sex.

The pacing is about the best of all the Plympton feature films and the story is quite coherent. The only problem it has, like most of his features, is feeling a bit stretchy about three quarters in but not intolerably so.

There are many rewards to reap from viewing this film, both visually and emotionally and it gets to the heart of the complexity of relationships better than many live action movies. If it weren't for the pacing issues on the last quarter of the film (which aren't as bad as I'm making them sound) I'd give this film a 9 or a 10.

If you have ever watched any of Plympton's shorts you already know that his animation has a distinctive look (hand-painted, pencil-colored, with a predominance of soft and pastels hues), a constant presence of a witty philosophical look at the world, and a strong surreal and whimsical imprint.

Cheatin' tells the story of a romance, from infatuation to real love, marriage, daily expressions of love, jealousy, cheating, and reconciliation with a great insight into the world of romantic love and the intricacies of human relationships, without the need of a word being uttered. Most people with a heart will relate to the way romantic emotions, positive and negative, are depicted in the film, and will like or at least be surprised at finding Plympton's whimsical surreal humorous elements presented in such an approachable and meaningful way.

The film has a strong presence of Opera arias, the lyrics being intrinsically linked to what is being told in the story. So, in a way, this is a modern operetta that pays a homage to the reality of love, that starts as a fantasy and projection onto the other and evolves in ways of relating that aren't always functional or what one expected beforehand.

Cheatin' is a great animated film on all fronts. Plympton's trademark animation and insightful eye are still there, but the narrative and story are very approachable for the general public. I loved the film, didn't find it boring at all.Yet, the movie would have been as good even if it had been 15-20 minutes shorter.

The movie has explicit sex scenes, so not a film for children.

Cheatin' is a bit bizarre, but entertaining nonetheless. It's an animated narrative film that tells the troubled love story of Ella and Jake, which has no dialogue, just grunts and squeals from the animated characters. The two meet at the fair while Jake is on a date with some other broad. As Ella gets crashed into too many times in the bumper car rink, she suffers a crash and almost dies from electrocution. Luckily, Jake is there to save her, and the two are love struck with each other (WARNING: There's a lot of softcore cartoon sex in this movie). Things seem to be going swimmingly, but Jake is just too much of a hunk—he has women throwing themselves (and their clothes) at him left and right. One especially sadistic, redheaded woman leads Ella into a changing room full of male mannequins while she tries on clothes, and snaps a photo of her to make it seem like she was getting a bukkake sesh. The conniving woman drops by the gas station at which Jake works, flirts with him (to the chagrin of her meathead husband), and slips him the photo, which sends him into tears and a mania to get back at Ella … by having sex with everyone woman with a vagina. Once Ella discovers a number in his work shirt, she, too, is bent on revenge. She first tries to put a hit on Jake with the sadistic redhead's husband, but when that falls through, she meets a magician of sorts, who can transfer her into other women's body's and spoil Jake's cheating exploits. Will the two come to terms and understand root of all these unfortunate mistakes? Cheatin' is great for one run though, though it isn't especially riveting. The animation is a great blend of colored-pencil-looking techniques reminiscent of the backdrops of Hey Arnold! (except the characters are animated that way, too), and the characters' bodies get comedically blown out of proportion to add a dash of cartoonish flair. These animation aspects keep the movie's engine running, but it feels too long and would have been more efficient as a short.

Slow, hollow, melodramatic and pretentious. The only redeeming qualities Cheatin' 2013 had is the unique art style and animation. At times it felt like an animation show reel instead of an actual telling of a decent story.

Sometimes the art style and acting doesn't fit well with the tone. The exaggerated and flippant animated scenes didn't help either. Felt very amateurish

Everything stops making sense at the end. It will leave you telling yourself 'oh okay that's happening'

I have to mention that it isn't all bad. There are scenes that I can't imagine being any better.