An American Tail

Although Don Bluth’s directorial debut, The Secret of NIMH, didn’t do well financially, with a box office of $14.7 million against a budget of $7 million, it attracted the attention of Stephen Spielberg, who collaborated with Don Bluth and Universal to produce An American Tail. Despite production troubles, which included creative differences and Spielberg learning just how complicated animation actually is, the film, notably co-produced in Ireland, released in late 1986 and made $104.5 million on a budget of about $9 million, which made it the most successful non-Disney animated film at the time. Critics were mixed on the film at the time, but its popularity would increase over the years, namely from those who watched it as children and retained fond memories of it. We never watched it ourselves until over thirty years later, which gave us more a fresh perspective and the opinion that while the traditional animation is still impressive to this day, the story is a bit choppy.

In 1885 Shostska, a Russian-Jewish family of mice, the Mousekewitzes, celebrate Hanukkah, where Papa (Nehemiah Persoff) gives his five-year-old son Fievel (Phillip Glasser) his hat and tells him about America, a country with no cats. During their celebration, however, the human home they live in suffers an antisemitic arson attack, burning their own home as well. In Hamburg, the Mousekewitzes board a ship headed for New York City, but Fievel is tossed overboard during a thunderstorm, devastating his parents. However, Fievel survives and, after he arrives in New York, resolves to find his family.

An American Tail’s greatest strength is its animation. There’s a consistent difference in scale between the world of the mice and the world of the humans, which the film occasionally reminds the audience with through glimpses of humans going about their normal lives. Considering the film’s lower budget compared to the average Disney film at the time, the characters move very fluidly and have an impressive level of detail that provides a good balance with the otherwise appealingly cartoony art direction. Especially impressive is a change to a darker art style on one object towards the end, which helps sell how scary it is, and it’s so impressively animated that you’d almost forget it was hand drawn. While the touches of realism, including phenomenal water and glass effects, do help sell the world, it seemed that the humans and, for one shot, the Statue of Liberty were rotoscoped, which nearly clashes with the more cartoony mice. Fortunately, the interactions don’t last very long and are more easily ignored.

The animation still holds up.

By comparison, however, the story felt more unfocused. It goes off in multiple directions as it tries tackling different subjects, ranging from losing a family member to antisemitism and overcoming differences, but it never feels completely cohesive as it hops between plot points. Each time Fievel keeps barely missing his family, it feels simultaneously tragic and frustrating when they’re only a few feet away, but the payoff at the end when they inevitably reunite still feels emotional regardless. There’s also a romantic element, namely between the mice Tony Toponi (Pat Musick) and Bridget (Cathianne Blore), but it feels underdeveloped. From our understanding, the troubled production resulted in cut or shortened footage that would have bridged the gaps between scenes better, as well as explain certain details that got lost, so it’s easy to wonder what it would have been like with the full vision intact.

Since An American Tail is a musical, it’s fortunate that there aren’t too many songs and they’re spaced out well, not to mention that they’re fairly high quality. While the lyrics aren’t too memorable, the beats are pretty catchy and the standout song, “Somewhere Out There”, even has an alternate recording during the credits sung by professional singers, Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram, instead of the voice actors Phillip Glasser and Betsy Cathcart. The voice acting is also pretty good, as everyone breathes a distinct life and energy into each character.

While perhaps not the best written, An American Tail has enough heart and incredible animation that helps make up for some of the flaws brought on by its troubled production. If you’re looking for something that you can enjoy more on an artistic level, then this film will satisfy. Otherwise, temper your expectations with the storytelling.