The title character of "The Rabbi's Cat" is not your everyday cartoon fluffball. He's scrawny, apparently hairless and unapologetically disputatious. The animated world he inhabits is no kid-friendly adventure but a philosophical quarrel in the form of a frenetic road trip through 1930s Africa.
Based on several volumes of the graphic novel series by Joann Sfar, the hand-drawn film is directed by Sfar and Antoine Delesvaux, who use a rich palette and a mix of visual styles ranging from blunt to dazzling.
Like Sfar's live-action biopic "Gainsbourg," the movie brims with incident and fantasy. It's also exceptionally talky, and as good as the voice cast is — it includes Maurice Bénichou as the rabbi and Mathieu Amalric — that wordiness can be wearing, or at least an occasionally unwanted distraction from the images, with their delightful detail.
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The cat too contributes to the talkathon, having received the power of speech after devouring the family parrot. Voiced by François Morel, he's a lovable rationalist who engages the rabbi in debates on religious precepts but nonetheless wants very much to be bar mitzvahed.
