It sounds like such a simple journey, but of course, there are complications that arise. Specifically, Vincent Van Gogh's brother is dead and the person Armand is told to bring the letter to now is a doctor, Dr Gachet (Jerome Flynn), residing in a small village that Vincent Van Gogh spent his final years in. As he heads to this village, Armand discovers that Vincent is a divisive presence in this locale, with some, like the owner of the hotel that Vincent lived in, thinking the deceased painter was a gentle & kind soul while others, like Gachet's wife, who feel that Van Gogh was simply an eccentric jerk. Armand's entire perception about this legendary painter is being challenged and as he delves depper into Vincent's past, he becomes more and more determined to complete a mission he previously saw as pointless.
The plot of Loving Vincent takes a cue from the stories of two incredibly famous pre-1955 motion pictures, the first being Citizen Kane in that both Loving Vincent and that Orson Welles movie follow a man interviewing various associates who had close ties to an influential figure that had recently passed away in an effort to get some answers about said influential figure. Meanwhile, the other film that this 2017 directorial effort from Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman takes major storytelling cues from is Kurosawa's 1950 film Rashomon in that the plot of Loving Vincent heavily deals with various retellings of specific events that differ from one person who is describing it to the other.
Those are fine movies to take a cue from when it comes to building a narrative foundation on and by specifically taking a cue from this pair of features both Armand and the viewer are able to get glimpses into a massively renowned painter that remind us all that Vincent Van Gogh was a human being suffering from common emotional woes we've all been through. The script does a great job of depicting coming to terms with death and exploring legendary individuals as normal people, though it does find itself stumbling in some clunky dialogue that just don't fit in a more thoughtful serious film like this one. "You've been so busy wondering about his death, you haven't thought about his life" is the kind of line that not even Saroise Ronan can salvage, alas.
Luckily, the occasionally dialogue gets partially mitigated by the beauitful animation used to bring this tale to life. The watercolor paintings used to realize the movie aren't just some gimmick, no, the individual frames are beautifully realized and give the film its own distinctive look, one that has the characters appearing so three-dimensional at times that I was left wondering if they did any rotoscoping on the live-action actors (images in the credits of the actors adorned in their respective characters costumes makes me think this could be the case). There's some thoroughly gorgeous animation to be found here, and on a larger context note, this is a top-notch example of just how many differing styles of art the versatile medium of storytelling of animation can accomadate.
The animation itself may be worth the price of a ticket alone, but luckily, there's other facets to Loving Vincent that do excel thus ensuring it's not one of those movies you have to mute so you can solely appreciate the pretty colors. There's especially some fine voice acting from Jerome Flynn and Saoirse Ronan in the film and the way Loving Vincent dovetails into a melancholy conclusion that gets capped off with a look at Van Gogh's painting depictions of certain characters in the film manages to drive home the pivotal theme of the entire production, with that theme in question being that a mans legacy, for good and for ill, endures long after he's gone.
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