UK: Ethel & Ernest [film review]

Ethel & Ernest directed by Roger Mainwood in 2016 is the true story of British illustrator Raymond Briggs' parents. The story follows them living an ordinary life in London and living through things like WWII. "Raymond Briggs's graphic-novel tribute to his parents Ethel and Ernest, and their long, happy marriage has been lovingly turned into a feature animation that exactly reproduced the details and the simplicity of his hand-drawn style." (Bradshaw, 2016). Raymond Briggs has a very distinct style of a hand drawn quality, with one of his most famous films being The Snowman.

Fig 1. Ethel & Ernest movie poster

Fig 2. Raymond Briggs' The Snowman

Raymond Briggs, now 85 years old, first published the story of Ethel & Ernest as a graphic novel in 1998. It shows the lives of his parents from when they first met in 1928 to when they died in 1971. During their lifetime there was a lot of social change- from the second world war to the arrival of the telephone and television in homes.

Fig 3. Ethel & Ernest book cover

The story focuses on all key events in Ethel and Ernest's lives but never goes into much detail about a specific aspect of their lives: "In some ways, it seems to be a 95-minute 'time-passing' montage consisting simply of Ernest reading out stories from the paper and Ethel being dubious [...] The story moves briskly, even faintly incuriously through events, never staying all that long on each one." (Bradshaw, 2016). Some of the events that are shown are never fully explained or shown, for example when Raymond as a child is brought home for stealing we never find out why he did it or when Raymond says his wife suffers from schizophrenia, nothing more is said about it.

The film shows a very ordinary life, but the ordinary is made extraordinary and special by the way it is shown on screen: "The ordinariness of this relationship, though, is just what makes it special, both on the page and floating by in Roger Mainwood's adaptation." (Robey, 2016). Ethel and Ernest are ordinary people, which allows the audience to connect to them, knowing that their own family would have lived a life similar to what is shown: "Ethel and Ernest click on screen as cosy archetypes, recognisable to anyone." (Robey, 2016). 

Fig 4. Ethel and Ernest

The animation style is very similar to a lot of Raymond Briggs' work, with it mainly being created using 2D hand-drawn animation, but there are also some 3D elements used: "The animation itself is perfect, with a drawing style that's close enough to Briggs for comfort, but also adding 3D elements with the use of CG compositing" (Thompson, 2017) "Cloth Cat animation will be dealing with the 3D elements in the film [...] Ethel and Ernest is primarily a hand drawn film, with all the characters being drawn in TVPaint. But some objects, such as vehicles, will require a computer model to be built and will be rendered to fit in with the drawn images." (Ethelandernestmovie's blog, 2015)

Fig 5. One of the cars in the film

Illustration List
Figure 1. Ethel & Ernest movie poster (2016) [poster] At: http://www.clothcatanimation.com/project/ethel-and-ernest/ (Accessed 14 February 2019)

Figure 2. Raymond Briggs' The Snowman (1982) [film still] At: https://downthetubes.net/?p=38546 (Accessed 14 February 2019) 

Figure 3. Ethel & Ernest Book (1998) [book cover] At: https://www.booktrust.org.uk/book/e/ethel--ernest/ (Accessed 14 February 2019)

Figure 4. Ethel and Ernest (2016) [film still] At: https://www.forbes.com/sites/lukethompson/2017/12/18/ethel-and-ernest-when-the-wind-blows-raymond-briggs-book-movie/#26775cc76b84 (Accessed 14 February 2019)

Figure 5. One of the cars in the film (2016) [film still] At: https://www.imcdb.org/v990712.html (Accessed 14 February 2019)


Bibliography

Bradshaw, P (2016) 'Ethel & Ernest review- moving adaptation of Raymond Briggs's graphic novel' [online] At: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/oct/27/ethel-ernest-review-moving-adaptation-of-raymond-briggss-graphic-novel (Accessed 14 February 2019)

Book Trust (2019) 'Ethel & Ernest' [online] At: https://www.booktrust.org.uk/book/e/ethel--ernest/ (Accessed 14 February 2019)

Ethelandernestmovie's blog (2015) 'A visit to production partner CLOTH CAT animation' [online] At: https://ethelandernestmovie.wordpress.com/2015/04/02/a-visit-to-production-partner-cloth-cat-animation/ (Accessed 14 February 2019)

Robey, T (2016) 'Ethel & Ernest review: Raymond Briggs honors his parents with slow-drip poignancy' [online] At: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/ethel--ernest-review-raymond-briggs-honors-his-parents-with-slow/ (Accessed 14 February 2019)

Thompson, L (2017) 'Review: Ethel & Ernest Is The True Story Behind When The Wind Blows, In Animation' [online] At: https://www.forbes.com/sites/lukethompson/2017/12/18/ethel-and-ernest-when-the-wind-blows-raymond-briggs-book-movie/#539827f06b84 (Accessed 14 February 2019)