Film Review: I Lost My Body

This film makes a severed hand a likable protagonist. Don’t go into I Lost My Body thinking you’re about to watch The Thing from the Addams Family go on an adventure. This is…different.

I Lost My Body is an animated film about a severed hand traveling around Paris searching for its owner. It sounds like the setup for a body horror B-movie or an Idle Hands remake. There is body horror, but it’s used as a means to an end. The result ends up being something closer to Terence Malick or Andrew Stanton experimenting with magical realism. The severed hand’s sentience is never in doubt or out of place; it just is.

The film is mostly told from the hand’s point of view. These sections are wordless, backed by beautiful animation, excellent sound work and a synthy, pulsating sci-fi score from Dan Levy. The animation is expressive and it communicates every emotion the hand is feeling as it makes its way across Paris.

When the film cuts away from the hand’s quest, it focuses on the hand’s owner. We see Naoufel’s life in two separate timelines: one directly leading up to his romance with Gabrielle and his amputation and another that shows his childhood and move from Morocco to Paris after the death of his parents.

That first timeline is the weakest part of the film. Adult Naoufel is an unengaging and sometimes unlikable protagonist. He’s incompetent, aloof and some of the behavior he uses to woo Gabrielle is downright stalker-like. The script tends away from condemning Naoufel and usually has Gabrielle call him out for it, but the relationship between the two is sweet enough that it works out in the end.

Younger Naoufel is more interesting, but he doesn’t appear in enough circumstances to get a sense of who he is. These early flashbacks are mostly setups for an absolutely stunning final ten minutes, where all three timelines meet up in spirit.

The film wouldn’t be half as entertaining if it weren’t stunning to watch. I Lost My Body has a flat, expressive look to it that looks like the confluence of a Ghibli film, Fiona Staples’ work on Saga and Daniel Clowes’ Ghost World. The hand looks exceptionally beautiful, which is not a sentence I ever thought I’d type.

If I Lost My Body was simply the tale of a hand searching for its owner, it would be in the running for my favorite animated film ever made. An unlikable and unengaging protagonist and love story put a severe drag on the film.

Final score: 6.3/10