Katherine Witts
A visually stunning, action-packed animation that is sure to bring a tear or two to your eyes.
OVERVIEW
‘The Last Wish’, released in the UK on 3 Feb 2023, follows our beloved hero Puss, as he discovers he is on his last cat life.
Just as he’s about to retire to being a ‘lap cat’, he hears news of a fairy tale ‘magic star’ which fell to Earth centuries ago. It has the power to grant one wish.
On his quest to wish for another nine lives, Puss encounters others who are determined to use the wish for themselves. All the while, Puss is quite literally trying to escape Death.
DreamWorks did not have to make Death so terrifying.
BEHIND THE SCENES
DreamWorks sure know how to pull together an all-star cast; from appearances by Florence Pugh playing ‘Goldie’ to Antonio Banderas as ‘Puss’ himself. With this unbelievable line-up, you know you’re in for a treat – especially when Olivia Coleman is cast as ‘Mama Bear’.
Visually, the animation of this film is breath-taking. We see a range of current stylistic trends being used and blended to create smooth fight scenes. Anime style action scenes, similarly used in Batman Ninja (2018), are used to exaggerate for comedic effect. Another notable animation style takes inspiration from ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse’ (2018), with the flicks and close-ups of particular actions for instance running or sword fighting.
THEMES
Animation, especially targeted towards kids, is never short of a plethora of deeper meanings, and ‘The Last Wish’ is no exception to this.
The most obvious one, which gained quite a lot of traffic on TikTok, has to be mental health, specifically anxiety and panic attacks. Not often do we find films that manage to visualize the true nature of experiencing a panic attack.
However, throughout the film we see Puss become gradually more afraid of Death. He’s unable to come out of this fear, even when his loved ones are trying to speak to him. We learn that, as Puss admits defeat and lets go of his pride and shame for having these perfectly normal feelings, he is eventually able to get through it with the support of others.
“What you wish you had, may be right in front of you.”
Another noticeable theme was ‘what you wish you had, may be right in front of you.’ We see this through a range of characters including Goldie and Kitty. However, we’re first introduced to this by Perrito who simply doesn’t want a wish as he has everything he needs right in front of him. In comparison, Goldie is the complete opposite. She longs for a ‘real’ family, even while her bear family raised and care for her. This furthers the idea that family isn’t defined by blood or similarity, but rather those who care and look after you.
HIGHLIGHTS
Although as terrifying as Death was, his whistling motif was something I thoroughly appreciated. Not only this, but the soundtrack as a whole had some absolute bangers, from original scores to popular pop tracks.
Overall, I would have to say the highlights of the film have to come from the character Perrito, played by Harvey Guillen. From his hilarious one-liners and various bleeped moments to the character’s sweet but naive personality, he is now truly my comfort character.
Featured image courtesy of Tyler Callahan via Unsplash. Image license found here. No changes have been made to this image.
Katherine Witts
Kath is a native Welsh-speaker and junior news editor for 'upday UK'. She is currently undergoing her masters in 'Visual Journalism' in Cardiff. As a former entertainment editor for Empoword and co-founder of Empoword's 'Pop Babble' podcast, Kath loves all things music, film, TV, and literature.