Babe

Babe feels like an odd combination of being incredibly upfront with its style and atmosphere, yet somehow also manages to be delightfully deceptive in its tone and presentation. What should just be a live-action underground version of ‘’Charlotte’s Web’’, surprisingly creates something unique enough to be its own thing, while still containing all of that stories’ cryptic subject matter and makes something maybe even darker in some respects. All of this is even funnier when this kids movie balances this with a whole load of cheery wholesomeness. Taken away from his mother and family who ‘’went somewhere else’’, a young pig who goes by the name Babe (voiced by Christine Cavanaugh) is bought by a farmer (played by James Cromwell) who doesn’t have a need for a pig, so decides to fatten him up in order to eat him. After being adopted into the sheepdog family by the mother dog, Fly (voiced by Miriam Margoyles), Babe finds his rare talent as he is able to effectively herd the sheep into their dens by being gentle and polite with them. Babe’s ability to do what a sheepdog can do gets notice from the other animals, mainly the head dog Rex (voiced by Hugo Weaving) who follows the rules of nature and feels its unfitting for a pig to be out of its place (which is basically just being Christmas Dinner). This all comes to a head when Babe is entered into a sheepdog herding competition, but will he be accepted despite being a pig or will he be forced back into his original roasting fate. Based on the children’s novel, ‘’The Sheep-Pig’’ written by Dick King-Smith, Babe was a surprisingly successful movie when it was released in 1995. The film wasn’t only a critical and commercial success, but it was also nominated for seven academy awards (even managing to win one for Best Visual Effects). What’s strange is not that the movie doesn’t necessarily deserve this amount of praise, as Babe is honestly much better than it could have turned out to be, but its still bizarre that a film of its caliber could make such a big impact.

From the outset, this movie should look like its going to be very akin to something like Charlotte’s Web, because the basic framework is there; a newborn pig is brought to a farm with a lot of different animals and tries to find a way to be useful or stand-outish enough that he doesn’t get eaten by the farmers. Both have a light-heartened atmosphere clashing with a more grounded reality that comes with its form of animal mental breakdowns, but they do definitely feel different. While Charlotte’s Web is quiet, thought-provoking, and mature in nature, Babe is definitely more leaning towards a kid’s story with more extreme situations that feel appropriate for this environment they’ve created. It is a bit louder, more slapstick heavy, it features more comic relief (and it doesn’t rip your heart out with a certain spider death), but this louder environment also makes the darker stuff strangely come across as more intense. When the movie is light-hearted, it’s never too overwhelming; it’s legitimately wholesome and manages to be sweet and charming without feeling like its too sappy or painfully over-the-top. This is mostly helped out because the movie has a surprisingly sinister, even cold undertone throughout the whole thing; while nothing that brutal or intense happens, the movie’s oddly cheery disposition makes the strangely dark moments even more pronounced and even more dramatic thanks to the movie’s energized and fast-paced tone. It’s child-like in nature, but that comes with an exaggerated fun and mean side, it’s a surprisingly good balance. Since the story really relies on these ‘slice-of-life’ moments as opposed to an overarching narrative, it relies on its characters and theme to tie itself together, which is does quite nicely.

Another reason the tone feels so well balanced in this film is the dedication and energy given to all the characters. The characters that are given focus in this movie are surprisingly well-defined roles with likeable personalities and very good stage presence thanks to the fantastic voice acting and training done with these animals. These animals always look on the mark for every scene they’re in and they feel 100% believable in every moment. It’s helped out because each voice actor is so perfectly casted that it makes it so easy to accept the illusion and not even question the talking animals (which could be a problem in others movie which use real talking animals where they don’t look well trained, or the voices are ill-fitting). Christine Cavanaugh as a wide-eyed good-heartened kid, Miriam Margoyles as a tough yet nurturing mother, Hugo Weaving as a strict, slightly deranged leader-figure, etc, they all fit remarkably well and each one of them give very dedicated performances for something that could be played very goofily and not that seriously. While some of the background animals can seem a little one-note and slightly annoying (those mice are balancing on the edge), they don’t overstay their welcome and the animals that get more screen-time are more tolerable and interesting to be around. Weirdly enough, the least interesting actors in the movie are the ones that we can actually see. It makes sense that in a movie based around talking animals, the humans wouldn’t be given as much attention, but even the ones that are, like the farmer and his wife played by James Cromwell and Magda Szubanski, aren’t really that interesting. They aren’t badly done or unlikeable, but their acting isn’t as engaging as the animals (both with and without the voices).

A lot of the movie’s tone and characteristics makes sense when it’s revealed that George Miller (the man responsible for bringing the world Mad Max) helped write and produce this film. He even wanted to direct it himself, but another Australian filmmaker, Chris Noonan, was given the mantle instead in his first directorial job (with Miller later taking the mantle for the sequel, Babe: Pig in the City). This is strange as whether by the fact that this was his first feature-length film or that he didn’t have a defined enough style, but this movie, top to bottom, feels like a Miller movie. Even excluding the messed-up moments and harsher tone, a majority of the film has elements that feel like it fits nicely with Miller’s overall style. It’s a movie where the lead character isn’t the most interesting, but rather an observer, the world’s he creates are extreme and crazy in nature, and it’s a movie that strangely offers up plenty of opportunities for dark, twisted elements even though the premise doesn’t really support it. Its weirdly imbalanced but seemed effective in the end as those elements really help in shaping this movie’s atmosphere and giving it a distinct personality and edge. The color palette for the whole movie also leads into this mismatch of dark and light; it’s a generic farm area with plenty of nice open fields, but there’s a lot of harsh shadows and sickly warm lighting moments that give this intense feeling for something that shouldn’t be intense at all, its a very nice job. The music, composed by Nigel Westlake, is similar in all departments; light and uplifting on the outside, with a sinister even joyfully unsettling element to it that makes it effective for a kid’s movie of this caliber, but sprinkles in enough of an edge that makes it work for adults as well.

By all accounts, Babe did a really good job differentiating itself from something like Charlotte’s Web to the point where it didn’t even need to change its story concept, it just needed a different style and direction to give its own energy and feel, and that’s what this movie pulls off very well. Its hard to say that it’s a movie that deserves all the academy awards that it was nominated for, but that’s comes from it not feeling like an appropriate choice as opposed to those things being bad. Overall, the movie is very likeable with a surprisingly well-balanced tone, enjoyably charming characters and an environment that is light-hearted in all the right places and weirdly intense in all the right places. It is a kid’s movie with a bit of an edge, but it has nothing scarring in it for kids (unless they can’t handle the constant threat of animal death), but even for adults, this is a delightful movie to check out.