Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart: a lovely and confusing animated film about a young boy with a cuckoo-clock heart who falls in love. Seems like an interesting premise, doesn’t it? I think so. In fact, watching this the first time my expectations were quite high. After watching it, however, I concluded it was my least favorite film ever – not the worst though, because those are two different things. After watching it again, though, I have come to appreciate some of it’s strange charm, which is why I did not title this review as being my least favorite film. Rather than explaining how bad the film is as I initially planned on doing, I will now simply give my opinion in a less biased and more just way. Though this film was originally French and was also adapted from a book, I will simply be reviewing the film as a stand-alone since most people don’t read the original French book. Prepare yourselves, because there will be spoilers.
               So, I would firstly like to give a quick overview of the plot. The story takes place in Edinburgh, Scotland, on the coldest day ever sometime in 1874. A pregnant woman struggles up a snowy hill to get to the midwife’s house, known as Madeleine. Madeleine brings the woman into her home and quickly assists her only to find that her newborn’s heart is completely frozen. With some quick thinking and ingenuity, Madeleine saves the baby’s life by replacing his heart with a cuckoo-clock. Of course, this baby is Jack. Madeleine presents Jack with three rules to prevent his death: never mess with the hands of his clock, never lose his temper, and never fall in love.
               Later that night, Jack’s mother whispers that Madeleine would make a much better mother and sneaks away into the cold. We never hear from her again. Time zooms forward to Jack’s tenth birthday. He has been cooped up at the Madeleine’s house most of his life and begs to see the village. Before taking him out, Madeleine informs him of the third rule which she had not taught him: never fall in love. He isn’t too concerned so they hurry off to the village, where lo and behold, Jack soon stumbles across a young girl his age singing on the street. They sing an awkward duet (more on that later) and he almost instantly falls in love. The girl stumbles into him damaging his clock heart and Jack collapses, only to be quickly aided by Madeleine who blames the girl entirely. She runs off while Madeleine takes Jack back home to nurse him back to health.
               When he awakes, he is finds himself completely infatuated with his new love interest much to the chagrin of Madeleine. She scolds him against that sort of behavior ever again and lets the matter rest. Jack, however, believing he could find the girl at the school in town, asks Madeleine to attend. After some convincing, she agrees.
               Jack arrives and instantly starts asking about the girl. He meets Joe, the school bully who informs him her name is Miss Acacia but he is not to ever speak of her again, because he is already in love with her. When Jack refuses to mind his business, Joe and his cronies torment him at school for the next four years. One day, the two get into a serious fight to the point where Joe tries to claw out Jack’s cuckoo-clock heart, but the clock chimes and the bird inside gouges out Joe’s eye. Jack panics and with the help of Madeleine, escapes the town on a train.
               Eventually, Jack meets a magician named Georges Méliès, who agrees to help him find Miss Acacia who is believed to reside in Andalusia, Spain. They eventually arrive to find that Miss Acacia now works as a singer at a circus. She doesn’t recognize him at first and Jack decides not to reveal his identity for fear of being rejected. Long story short, Jack eventually reveals himself upon realizing Miss Acacia had fallen in love with him as well the day they met and they plan on running away together.
               Right before leaving, however, Joe arrives to Andalusia and is livid to see Jack and Acacia together. He tells Acacia of the three rules and how Jack is sure to die if they were to run away together. Acacia, refusing to be the cause of Jack’s death, promptly rejects him and leaves Andalusia with Joe. This of course leaves Jack broken hearted, and as he had given Acacia the key to wind his heart, he knows he only has a short time before death.
               He decides to return to Edinburgh to find Madeleine, knowing that she is the only person skilled enough to fix his heart only to find that she died shortly after he left due to heartbreak. Acacia, remembering she has Jack’s key, tracks him down to find him at Madeleine’s grave, shivering in the cold and close to death. Despite Acacia’s attempts, Jack refuses to let her wind him up and throws away the key so he only has himself to blame. They share one last kiss before Jack dies and climbs to heaven using the snowflakes as a ladder.
               Okay, so that’s the overall story, so let me talk about what I liked about the film versus what I did not like. Firstly, there is the plot itself. I thought it to be an interesting and clever premise, very much like an old fairytale and it seemed to have quite a few similarities to Romeo and Juliet. However, the majority of the film was inconsistent and confusing. Many conflicts could have been resolved with basic solutions and simple communication. Furthermore, there were many unresolved plot lines, like the crying man towards the beginning of the film, the mention of Madeleine being a witch, a sudden and meaningless appearance of Jack the Ripper on the train ride to Andalusia, and Acacia’s habit of sprouting thorns on her skin when angry or scared. I thought the plot was interesting and charming, yet, the way it was brought to life was overall confusing and it left me feeling like I missed something.
               Then there was the characters. For the most part, they all seemed flat and bland. Besides some basic motives, like Jack wanting to find Acacia, Georges wanting to build a film camera, and Joe wanting Acacia for himself, the characters seemed to be lacking drive. Many of the characters were simply there and didn’t really move the plot along. The two-headed girls at the circus for example, which served no purpose at all to the story, as well as Jack the Ripper as I previously mentioned. There were also three characters who lived with Jack and Madeleine: Arthur, Anna, and Luna. They didn’t have any reason to be in the story either beside providing some exposition. The only characters really necessary to the story were Jack, Acacia, Joe, and Madeleine. Though I did like the characters to some extent (mainly Madeleine, Georges, and Joe), there weren’t many reasons to root for the characters or find any sort of understanding or realism in them.
               As for the music, I enjoyed the instrumentals but the lyrics downright confused me. Upon Jack and Acacia’s first meeting, Jack sings, “Oh, my pretty arsonist, let me clasp you close to me and rip your clothes with my teeth and tear them into confetti, to scatter as we kiss.” Keep in mind, he is ten years old! His voice actor sounds like he’s thirty years old by the way, but that’s another point. Throughout the film, many songs are used though they never really seem to fit with the tone nor do the lyrics ever make sense. The only song I feel is an exception is the song Joe sings after convincing Acacia to leave with him. It has good rhythm and basically gives an account of the story from the villain’s point of view which is quite interesting.
               I did notice a few reoccurring themes that I liked, though it never seemed clear. I feel that perhaps this movie intentionally made the points blurry to allow the audience to interpret the happenings for themselves. What I noticed for the most part were the parallels between Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart and Romeo and Juliet, which overall seem fairly clear but still uncertain. The story seems to deal with Jack’s foolish infatuation rather than a healthy and meaningful love, which could refer to Shakespeare’s theme of young love often being foolish within his notable play.
               In conclusion, I wouldn’t say this film is the worst ever, but there are definitely methods that could have been used to improve the story and give it a stronger structure. I liked the whimsical yet macabre world the story takes place in and the themes (at least my interpretation of them), but the actual plot was not entirely clear nor compelling. I would truly recommend watching it though and surveying the story through your own eyes. It’s a strange but lovely film overall and I am glad I gave it a second chance.