Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Ernest & Célestine Blu-ray Movie Review

Sink your teeth into this sweet little morsel.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 4, 2014

Is there any stranger character from folklore, at least folklore that is intrinsically part of childhood, than the Tooth Fairy? Think about it—Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, even scary characters like the Boogie Man may indeed be fanciful in their own distinctive ways, but the Tooth Fairy isn’t just a weird conception to begin with, she performs a resolutely bizarre function, sneaking into kids’ rooms in the dead of night, purloining their teeth from under their pillows and leaving money in the place of a bicuspid or two. My wife jokes that the Tooth Fairy seems to be the product of a union between Tinkerbell and Sonny Corleone, a winged sprite who traffics in human body parts, but there are longstanding traditions in many cultures around the globe that deal with that rite of passage known as losing a baby tooth. Some cultures thought that these teeth should be burned in order to ensure a happy life (or even afterlife) for the kids who lost them, while other cultures utilized a number of riffs on what became the more or less standard Tooth Fairy premise. Still in whatever form the Tooth Fairy story takes, it’s a decidedly odd remnant of some almost atavistic urge on humankind’s part to account for this kind of frightening occurrence of having part of one’s body detach itself (Freudians have long associated dreams of dental problems with intimations of mortality). Belgian author and illustrator Gabrielle Vincent wandered into this fray with her celebrated series of children’s outings which offered a tiny mouse named Celestine who, along with all her rodent kin, is tasked with trekking above ground to a world populated only by bears to snatch baby bear teeth from under pillows. It’s an obviously whimsical take on the whole Tooth Fairy premise, and the dental angle is in fact kind of tangential to the story’s real focus on the meaning of friendship in the face of manifest fear and prejudice, but it adds an oddly endearing aspect to a gently moving tale.

The whole dental angle to Ernest & Celestine isn’t immediately apparent, though it’s hinted at in the first scene when Celestine, housed in what appears to be an almost Dickensian orphanage with a bunch of other young mice, deals with an imperious matron named the Gray One (voiced by Lauren Bacall in the English language version) who has trouble keeping what look like mini-tusks lodged in her mouth. Later it becomes clear that the entire mice population is suffering from rather radical tooth decay, and that explorer mice are therefore sent to the bear lined streets above to forage for bear teeth which are then taken back to the mice lair underground and utilized in a huge dentistry facility to replace missing mice teeth.

While Celestine (Mackenzie Foy in the English language version) is tasked with getting bear teeth along with all the other young mice, what she really wants to do is draw, and her subjects are frequently friendly looking bears, something that her cohorts as well as the Gray One find unbelievable. In one of her forages “up top”, Celestine ends up getting trapped in a garbage can after a particularly disastrous attempt to get a baby bear tooth. The next morning, a hapless bear named Ernest (Forest Whitaker in the English language version), who has been “hibernating” in his isolated shack and who is now very hungry, sets out to earn some spending money as a busker of sorts, though he finds that his singing and dancing are not espcially well received by the public at large. After that disappointment, as he is doing some foraging of his own, he stumbles across a sleeping Celestine atop a pile of trash in the can. He’s about to snack on the poor little mouse when she points out a cellar full of sweets, something that endears the little mouse to the bear.

A series of events soon forces Ernest and Celestine into a “you and me against the world” scenario, as neither the mice nor the bears are content to see this interspecies friendship develop. What’s interesting, though, is that freed from the morés of their individual cultures. Ernest and Celestine are finally able to truly express themselves, especially with regard to their talents. Celestine’s facility with drawing and painting blossoms, as does Ernest’s musical proclivities. Meanwhile, an almost hyperbolic response to the friendship ends with a potentially frightening scenario that may see the two iconoclasts jailed and perhaps even worse.

Ernest & Celestine’s interwoven morals aren’t especially profound, but they’re astute and meaningful nonetheless. There’s an obvious warning here against prejudice and judging books by their covers (so to speak), but there’s an equal (and probably equally obvious) lesson about just being oneself and letting the chips fall where they may. It’s all dressed up in a patently fanciful storytelling style, and the whole toothy aspect to the tale gives things a decidedly odd ambience, but at its heart Ernest & Celestine is a simple, heartfelt tale of acceptance and personal integrity. The film may be geared toward children, but it contains a message that should ring true for even the most hard hearted of adults as well.

Ernest & Célestine Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Ernest & Celestine is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cinedigm and G Kids with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Anyone coming to this feature expecting some sort of knock your socks off CGI laden visual feast a la Pixar is probably going to be disappointed, for the film exploits a much more minimalistic, hand drawn ambience that seeks to evoke the original illustration style of the book series. This is therefore more of a moving watercolor than anything, with backgrounds that tend to blanch out into pure white and without much in the way of bright, popping colors to really pull in the eye. Instead, Ernest & Celestine offers a largely neutral toned palette that tends to favor beiges, browns and rather pale pastels quite a bit of the time. The animation style even eschews traditional features like heavy, precise line detail. With all of that said, the high definition presentation here is quite splendid, with a problem free image that accurately reproduces the often gauzily soft look of the film. Colors, while frankly never very vivid, look accurate and are decently saturated. The "look" of this film is quite unique and this high definition presentation supports it quite well, with good contrast and a lack of compression artifacts.

Ernest & Célestine Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Both the original French language track as well as an English dub are presented via lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. Much like the video component, the soundtrack here might seem a bit underwhelming at time, but it provides some subtle and nuanced immersion, especially with regard to things like the hustle and bustle of the mouse "city" in the underground sewers. The charming score also wafts through the surrounds quite nicely and dialogue and effects are cleanly presented. Dynamic range is rather limited on this release but does not distract from the appealing nature of either track.

Ernest & Célestine Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Making of Ernest and Celestine (1080p; 51:59) is a great in-depth piece that looks at everything from the adaptive process to animation.


• Feature Length Animatic (720p; 1:24:17)


• Interview with Director Benjamin Renner (1080p; 13:58)


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2:21)

Ernest & Célestine Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Ernest & Celestine is in many ways the antithesis of the flashy (and usually noisy) animated fare that American audiences are more used to seeing. This is a deliberately intimate, small scale production that emphasizes character over any in your face dramatics or other outrageousness. As such, it may seem almost too gentle to really have much impact, but for those with an open heart, the film is incredibly ingratiating and sweet natured. The animation style here is also "quiet" in its own way, far removed from the ostentatious approaches that have been the norm since the dawn of the CGI age, but this also is one of Ernest & Celestine's most alluring aspects. Admittedly teens (and maybe even younger adolescents) may find the film "lame", but innocent younger viewers and even cynical older viewers attempting to reclaim some of their own innocence will love this small film with a very big heart. Highly recommended.