Manivald is a fox in his 30's who still lives at home with his mother. His many diplomas and his musical skill show him to be intelligent and very well educated, but yet he spends his days playing piano at home, getting looked after by his mother. His emotional reliance on this comfort zone is challenged when an attractive plumber comes to fix their washing machine, and who seems to be attracted to Manivald.
I read a really good write on this film on Short of the Week; the writer had made a real connection to the core element of this film which is about someone in their 30's struggling to make that emotional step away from childhood and strive out on their own. I do not know her age, but I can imagine it hitting a nerve with a generation who are leaving home later and later, buying their own place later and later (if at all), and facing challenges that I did not face even a decade or so before them. This part of the film is clearly laid out too - it is the base of the front, and it is the emotional core of the ending, and it feels clear that the odd sexual entanglements of the film are a plot device that leads the character from where they are at the start to where they end up. The problem I had though is that this plot device section is the whole film; it is the majority of time, it sets the tone for the film, and it spends its time on this, and less on the character.
Of course part of the character's movement occurs within and because of this device, but I did not connect to it mainly because of how focused it was on the sexual plot muddle. The animation itself is really pleasing in its colour and design; and I liked that the sexual element was not pushed in graphic or crude terms (cliched I know, but I was expecting it when I saw this was an eastern European animation). However in terms of plot and character, I wanted more, and personally found the plot device to distract from Manivald as a person (fox?) more than it enabled me to follow and understand his personal journey.
