Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach’s Chicken for Linda! boasts a wide range of themes and streamlined sentiments within its breezy 76-minute runtime. An animated feature about a single mother willing to do anything to make her daughter happy, Chicken for Linda! utilizes its uniquely-rendered animation style to etch a beautiful, heartwarming story that roots grief at the center of its tale.
Malta and Laudenbach, however, do not linger on the painful moments for too long — pain is a gateway to holding space for emotions that require innate understanding and healing, which in turn, brings people closer on an interpersonal and communal level. Humor is an intrinsic aspect of this animated feature, and even when things feel hopeless or bleak, lighthearted fun finds a way to keep hope alive in a world that is brimming with possibilities.
Chicken for Linda! opens with snapshots of Linda (Mélinée Leclerc) as a baby, where her mother Paulette (Clotilde Hesme) and father (Giulio Pietro Sermonti) feed her chicken pepper while doting on her cuteness. These formative years are often forgotten once a child grows up, and the same is the case with Linda — as she lost her father pretty young, and she does not remember the memories they shared together. However, love lingers in our hearts even when we cannot seem to hold on to it, as the memory of her father lives on in her love for chicken pepper, a specialty dish that Giulio used to make for her when she was a baby.
Now living with her mother, who does her best to care and provide for her, Linda spends her childhood doing what most kids do: trying on her mother’s jewelry with a sense of wonder, helping out her friends whenever she meets them in her neighborhood, and harboring an unending sense of curiosity in a way only a child can. Paulette, who is not much of a cook, relies mostly on pre-packaged microwave meals for survival, making the prospect of a freshly-cooked meal even more special in this specific context. After Paulette mistakenly accuses Linda of trading her favorite ring for her friend’s beret, she is overcome with guilt and wants to make it up to her daughter. What does Linda want? Freshly-cooked chicken pepper, of course!
What Malta and Laudenbach have succeeded in accomplishing with such a simple premise is truly remarkable, as the story then devolves into this wonderful, bittersweet journey to find a chicken on the day of a citywide strike. As Linda does not quite understand the implications of a strike, she vehemently holds on to her wish to have this meal, while Paulette has to resort to wild shenanigans to make this a reality.
Colorful characters pepper this adventure, including Paulette’s sister Astrid (Laetitia Dosch), who is fed up with Paulette’s impulsiveness, and a trigger-happy cop named Sergio, who is not very good at his job, but makes up for it in spirit. The kids in Linda’s housing complex are endearing to witness as well, as they indulge in the small but essential wonders of childhood, such as banding together to help out a friend or chomping on a chicken leg during a communal meal.
At its heart, Chicken for Linda! is about finding light in the darkness and embracing the void left behind by a person who will always be dear to us. Guilio might be gone, but he lives on in his recipe of chicken pepper, which Linda and Paulette will always associate with him and his memory. However, one has to move forward, too, lest grief holds us back from living life untethered, and this emotional untangling can only come from a place of love. The lessons we learn along the way, along with the friends that help us through thick and thin, can help us step into a new hope, creating a world where even children can come together to fight systemic evil. The sheer bravery of the act was unbeknownst to them.
The animation style itself helps us understand this momentous world better, where each character is identified by a blob of color and etched in minimalistic line drawings. Linda is always yellow, standing out of the crowd due to her unending optimism and zest for adventure, while her friend Carmen is green, which informs her personality as someone who is inherently nurturing.
This distinct style allows some sections to bloom, especially the ones that accompany little songs to convey a narrative aspect or underline a character quirk. The film’s backgrounds, painted by Margaux Duseigneur, are simplistic yet effective, as they paint a picture of communal harmony amidst a tense sociopolitical situation and allow our imagination to etch out the details about the characters we encounter along the way.
Chicken for Linda!, while a family film, utilizes its serious premise to delve deeper into character psyches and further the film’s emotional throughline. The best adventures are short and sweet but eventful, and the same can be said about a film where the promise of a warm, shared meal as the sun sets feels so life-affirming.
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