Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty

Fairy Tales are full of fantasy and hope and wonder and are often told to young children to help them get off to sleep with heads full of perfection and dreams of love. Of course, when they are being told by an aged Irish grandmother, perhaps some of the detail is different n the way it is told but, hey, Sleeping Beauty is Sleeping Beauty right? I watched this film (finally) because it somehow managed to get itself nominated for an Oscar – a fact which, no offence, suggests that it was a rather slow year in the ol' "animated shorts" category because, while amusing, it is certainly no more than that. The idea is sound though and I thought it would be much smarter than it was but it does still have enough about it in terms of potential to be "pretty good" even when it falls short of what it could have been. The fairy-tale section is rather crudely OTT and obvious and it does detract from the "real world" animated stuff that does have a touch of comedy about it. It is in these section where the bitterness of the grandmother comes through best, because it is a bit more subtle than the overblown version of the story she is telling – it also helps that the animation is more appealing too.

As it is though it is never as sharp nor as funny nor as clever as one would have hoped (or the Oscar nomination suggests). It is amusing and technically well done but nothing more than that – solid little short film but the potential was there for more than that.