Review: Ernest & Celestine

City Paper grade: A-

Combine children’s stories and animation, and the result is almost unlimited license to let the imagination run wild. So it must have been for Gabrielle Vincent, whose books about the friendship between a mouse and a bear form the basis of Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar and Benjamin Renner’s beguiling (in every sense) film. In this world, realized with the light touch of a pencil sketch, mice and bears live in parallel societies, each organized around the worth of their teeth: Mice, like Célestine (voiced by Mackenzie Foy), prize incisors for their gnawing power, which allows them to carve whole cities out of the earth; bears, like Ernest (Forest Whitaker), serve as their unwitting supplies, as mice pilfer the baby teeth left under their pillows to replace their own worn-out chompers. The plot, however, is hardly the thing: It’s both elusive and convoluted, as if we’re not meant to pay too much attention lest it pull our focus from the movie’s tactile textures. More than anything, it’s a pleasure to hang out in this hand-drawn world, especially with major studios like Disney turning their backs on the form.