What the Hell is Something As Good as 'Nimona' Doing On Netflix?

By Petr Navovy | Film | December 5, 2023 |

By Petr Navovy | Film | December 5, 2023 |

People who have been reading my reviews for long enough will know that I have a little beef going on with Netflix. Several beefs, really, but the relevant one here is the simplest one: Their films are sh*t. No two ways about it. I’ve heard people talk about the ‘Netflix house style’, which is an insanely generous way to describe the algorithmically generated, texture-less slop that they tend to produce.

That being said, nuggets of gold do slip through, which must really rile up those Netflix execs. ‘Johnson! Who the hell let this through?! This is a good film, with a distinct voice and actual filmmaking craft behind it! Why would we release this?! Somebody’s head is on the block for this!’ One such nugget, released a little while back in June, but which I’ve only just stumbled upon by accident—yet another Netflix beef: the burying of art in tidal waves of anonymous crap—is Nimona.

Now before we go crazy and give Netflix too much credit here, it’s important to remember that Nimona is not actually a Netflix production. I won’t recount the story fully here as Allyson and Kayleigh already have, but Nimona was originally a Blue Sky Studios production. Disney smothered the studio and Nimona was one of the casualties of that moment of corporate vandalism. Eventually, Annapurna picked up the film and then released it on Netflix, and I am so glad that this wonderful picture got another chance at life.

Based on the 2015 graphic novel of the same name by ND Stevenson, Nimona is an animated science fiction/fantasy comedy drama that combines the futuristic with the mediaeval to tell the story of two main characters: Ballister Boldheart, a knight of humble origins, and Nimona, a shapeshifter of mysterious provenance. Ballister and Nimona’s paths collide at the start of this story when Ballister finds himself outcast from the classist society in which he had previously, against all odds, managed to achieve great success and prestige. Fighting back against the fundamentalist system that rejects them both for different reasons, the duo find they have much more in common than at first appears, and they go on a journey of inner and outer discovery that threatens to overturn the founding myths of the world they live in.

Save for a few words of praise I’d heard here and there, I knew nothing about Nimona going into the film. It turned into one of the most—and I genuinely hate using this word unless it’s absolutely necessary, but here nothing else will do—delightful surprises I’ve had in a long time. It’s also one of the best animated films I’ve seen in a few years. Much like its titular character, it overflows with energy and dazzles with invention, rapid fire salvos of visual gags and kinetic action sharing stage with beats of deep, genuine pathos and timely, organically delivered messages of acceptance and tolerance. Nimona is cut together with an adept rhythm that keeps you completely engaged from start to finish. It is an animated film, yes, suitable for children, but—unlike much children’s entertainment these days—it isn’t afraid of tackling the heavier stuff, sometimes quite viscerally. It’s all the better for it.

As much as I prefer it when animated films utitlise professional voice actors instead of big, recognisable screen names, Chloë Grace Moretz and Riz Ahmed perform excellently here in the two central roles, while the rest of the cast, including Eugene Lee Yang and Frances Conroy, put in strong turns too. In a more just world, Nimona is the kind of film that would be a flagship release from its studio, which would make a bang at the box office and make scores of adoring fans. We don’t live in that world. We live in Disney’s world. The least we can do is log onto stupid Netflix and give Nimona the watch it deserves. I know I’ll be doing so multiple times.