Movies

Summer Movie-time in France: Ernest & Celestine

Posted on 06/04/2019

Family

Summertime for me means that it’s time for movies. Between new blockbuster films in the theater and classics at home, we are spoiled in how many different movies we have available to us–though there’s nothing like a screening in a classic theater venue like State Theatre New Jersey!

Something we love to do in our Free Summer Movie selections is provide a good mix of classic, new, and different films than what you would necessarily pick up on your own. This year our guests can relive the excitement of last year’s superhero hit Spider-man Into the Spider-Verse, celebrate the 16th anniversary of Finding Nemo, and catch everyone’s favorite nanny in Mary Poppins Returns, the sequel to the 1964 classic.

And our something different choice this year is a film that reminds us all about the hand-painted animation styles of the past–Ernest & Celestine. 

This French film, where mice and bears live in mutual fear of one another and are separated into two different worlds, the mice below the surface living within sewers, and bears in villages above ground, is charmingly created in a style reminiscent of watercolor paintings.

In an old house in mouse-town that was covered in vines, lived 12 little mice in two straight lines and their caretaker, the Gray One, who teaches all the little mice about the dangerous bears that live in the world above them. All except for brave Celestine, who would like to actually meet a bear before passing judgement and sneaks her way to the world above.

And up there she finds Ernest, an unloved and down on his luck musician who just happens to be a bear. The two outcasts try to bring each other into their own world, and ultimately decide to make it on their own, ignoring the prejudice and racism between the mice and bears of their communities. But the elders of either world have their own opinions about what should happen to these outcasts…

Come find out how these two characters, the stars of Gabrielle Vincent's beloved children’s’ book series first came to live together, in the beautiful and loving piece Ernest & Celestine on July 16!

By Erik Stratton