Nick Bruno, Troy Quane | 1hr 39min
The classic tale of knights and beasts that opens Nimona is like many we have heard before, telling of the legendary heroine Gloreth who vanquished a Great Black Monster and built a fortified wall to protect the kingdom after her death. The series of illustrated tapestries depicting this conflict in the prologue effectively solidify it as historical fact within this fantasy world, offering the city a sense of identity, culture, and purpose, and further justifying the traditions that have persevered for one thousand years. As such, the futuristic, medieval kingdom where Nimona’s main storyline picks up is built on a foundation of distant mythology, and it is here where directors Nick Bruno and Troy Quane playfully subvert the genre to consider the nature of prejudices unquestioningly passed from one generation to the next.
While Pixar has been struggling to deliver a certified hit ever since its success with Soul in 2020, other animation studios such as Sony Pictures and even Nickelodeon Movies have swept in with a partial return to 2D stylisations, though this alone has not compensated for the deficit in cinematic fables targeted at children. Nimona may be the closest any recent film has gotten to recapturing the magic of 2000s-era Pixar storytelling, revitalising familiar archetypes through the fresh, imaginative setting of a medieval kingdom located in the distant future. The clean geometric shapes drawn through sets and character designs effectively mimic the prologue’s tapestry style art, but are also imbued with a neo-futurist liveliness that thrusts the aesthetic forward in time, dynamically reflecting the anachronistic paradox of the clashing eras.
Of course, much of this energy comes down to the character of Nimona herself, a mysterious shapeshifter who has sought out fugitive Sir Ballister Boldheart. Mischievous, impulsive, and ready to pick a fight with anyone upholding the status quo, she believes she has found an ally in the knight framed for the murder of Queen Valerin, and quickly dubs herself his villainous sidekick. Her backstory is kept deliberately ambiguous, though Bruno and Quane relish animating pieces of it upon the tiled walls of a subway station, creatively developing their tapestry-style illustrations into a more modern, urban art.
Like Nimona, Ballister has previously been ostracised for his commoner background, despite proving his capability in serving the kingdom and joining the Institute for Elite Knights. Rather than lashing out in bitter revenge though, he is simply determined to uncover the identity of the Queen’s true killer and prove his innocence – even if Nimona’s troublemaking tactics tend to have the opposite effect. Rather than trying to counteract society’s negative, fear-driven opinions of her, she has chosen to become the terrifying monster they believe her to be, and sow chaos wherever she goes.
Given Ballister’s relationship with fellow knight Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin, the queer subtext of Nimona only barely lingers beneath the surface, criticising the prejudice directed towards those who live outside heteronormative conventions. The myths passed down from ancestors to their descendants as cautionary tales are the same as those which reinforce outdated beliefs, and so only when their origins are challenged can society identify where its true corruption may lie.
Many of the twists in Nimona can be spotted from a mile off, and yet in true Pixar fashion they nevertheless go right for the heartstrings and tug on them with gentle sorrow, eventually uniting its well-earned emotional climax with apocalyptic medieval action. Despite sharing common ground as outsiders, Ballister and Nimona possess entirely different attitudes around dealing with their alienation, and it is in the equal, compassionate understanding of both that this film develops a surprising complexity. By undermining the very basis of archaic narrative traditions and demolishing the walls they build around our worldview, Nimona recognises the freedom that lies in open-minded acceptance, and reshapes them into a historic allegory for a new age.
Nimona is currently streaming on Netflix.
Scene by Green 
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