Cartoon Saloon, the Irish studio behind Oscar-nominated gems like 'Wolfwalkers,' adapts Jessica Love’s acclaimed children’s book about an imaginative boy with an immigrant grandmother trying to understand him.
The wondrous paintbrush of Cartoon Saloon has now reached the Latino community of Brooklyn. The acclaimed Irish studio gained international prominence (and multiple Oscar nominations) with local folktales in gorgeous animated form (“The Secret of Kells,” “Song of the Sea,” “Wolfwalkers”), and tackled an Afghanistan-set story in 2017’s “The Breadwinner.” Now, they’re once again pushing the geographical boundaries of their storytelling with “Julián,” a vibrant adaptation of Jessica Love’s acclaimed 2018 children’s book “Julián is a Mermaid.”
Sea creatures materialize around seven-year-old Julián (voiced by Knyght Darius Jac), as his imagination flows freely on the drive to meet his grandmother Carmela (Milcania Diaz-Rojas) for the first time in Brooklyn. Upon dropping him off, Julián’s father warns Carmela that the boy is different, appealing to some leniency. Though neither the book nor the film makes a concrete assumption about the young protagonist’s identity, it’s clear that his gender expression is still unburdened by society’s inflexible expectations of masculinity. No prejudices against colorful clothing or jewelry have been implanted in him.
Vivacious and prone to daydreaming, Julián experiences a culture shock under Carmela’s roof — there’s impressive attention to detail in the production design inside her home, down to the magnets on her refrigerator. He’s not used to Dominican food or to having restrictions on what he can play with. Carmela, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who still yearns for the people and the warm waters of her homeland, is presented as a matriarch with a firm hand, but she also genuinely tries to engage with Julián’s unique interest in the ocean and, later, with mermaids. He befriends a group of neighborhood girls who tell him about the Coney Island Mermaid Parade. He will, of course, need a costume.
The character design in “Julían” differs from the subdued and elegantly playful illustrations in Love’s book, with the film leaning more cartoonish and boasting brighter, more saturated colors. What the animation brings to life is the fluid movement of water in Julián fantastical visions. The aquatic theme, the creatures Julían conjures up, and especially a sentient, fish-like sphere that the boy plays with all call to mind Hayao Miyazaki’s “Ponyo.” Furthermore, just like in that fish-out-of-water tale, a goddess of the sea makes a notable appearance. In “Julián,” it’s the Orisha deity Yemayá, whom the kid learns about through a kindhearted bodega owner, who also displays a warm and welcoming take on manhood.
Though the film is directed by Irish animator Louise Bagnall — an Oscar nominee for the 2019 short “Late Afternoon,” here making her debut feature — with Guillaume Lorin and Mark Mullery as co-directors, Cartoon Saloon has made a few creative decisions to ensure cultural authenticity. The casting of Diaz-Rojas as Carmela, for example, gives the character a strongly defined personality, her nuanced voice performance shifting seamlessly between English and Spanish. The actress conveys that Carmela is a woman who has built a life in New York City over several decades, while remaining tethered to her Dominican background.
More importantly, Cartoon Saloon tapped writer Juliany Taveras to pen the screenplay. Taveras — who identifies as a non-binary, queer, Afro/Indigenous Dominican American New Yorker — is the ideal artist to tackle the specific intersections of “Julián” from a place of personal, first-hand understanding of the identities that the story addresses. That Carmela mostly keeps her frustration in check, never punishing Julián for his innocent mischief, speaks to how the film challenges stereotypes around Latino households. She’s not the abuela in Pixar’s “Coco,” who imposes her trauma on her grandchild; instead Carmela listens to Julián, willing to compromise.
That’s not say that “Julián” lacks conflict, because the child’s unbound flamboyance chafes against other people’s views on he should behave, through no fault of his own. His colorful mermaid costume catches the eyes of Carmela’s gossipy friends, as well as negative attention from other boys. The acceptance he eventually finds, after refusing to dim himself for being “too much,” reads more like a much-needed lesson for the adults around him than for Julián. His feat is to not let them change him. Rather, his identity grows and expands, with a newfound connection to his Dominican heritage.
Thorny realities deftly observed from the perspective of young characters are present in all of Cartoon Saloon’s features so far. Even without the epic scale of some of the studio’s other works, “Julián” is a delight — elevating its urban context with visual whimsy and a focus on the intergenerational relationship at its center, more than on otherworldly magic.