I Lost My Body tells two separate stories, interwoven with one another. One tells of a young man named Naofel, a delivery boy who one day meets a woman named Gabrielle while on the job. Being immediately entranced by her, he finds ways to get closer to her, and begins to fall for her. Meanwhile, a disembodied hand ventures in the same city ventures to find its body and be reunited, along the way battling various creatures such as birds and rats as it journeys to find safety.
The film is streaming on Netflix and is originally in French, though there is an English dub that features Dev Patel voicing Naofel and Alia Shawkat as Gabrielle, both of whom do fine jobs bringing these characters to life. Normally, English-language dubs of foreign films tend to be widely hit-and-miss, unless they’re of something high-profile such as a Studio Ghibli film, with a lot of the translated dialogue coming off as a bit clunky and the delivery being awkward. But the few characters this film focuses on still have a lot of emotional depth to them that’s still felt with some stellar voice work.
What possibly enhances this experience though is the fact that the dialogue is kept to somewhat of a minimum. This is often a quiet, dialogue-free film and it works at its best when things simply play out, rather than focusing on conversations to drive things forward. There are plenty of scenes that do feature extensive back-and-forths, though they don’t take up the entire movie.
The film relies much more on its beautiful animation to move things along, and it’s absolutely wonderful to look at. The landscapes of the city often feel like paintings come to life. The attention to detail is astounding, with an often eye-popping distinct color palette. Even during moments where a scene takes place at night, or any other scene that takes place in a darker environment, there’s always something that sticks out to catch the audience’s attention, like an article of clothing. Nearly any of these scenes can be screenshot and framed.
Of the two segments, the hand storyline is by far the stronger of the two, mainly since that’s completely dialogue-free. The film relies on a gripping soundtrack and portraying such small creatures that people take for granted every day as this real threat, and it often leads to some truly thrilling moments. This storyline could have easily gone down the route of campy and ridiculous, though the film plays it quite seriously and often doubles down on the stakes in play regarding how much danger this hand is in. I never thought I’d say I was so invested in what happens to a disembodied hand, but through some truly impressive visuals, it’s easy to care.
The sequences with Naofel and Gabrielle are also great, as they really play up feelings of isolation and loneliness, and what one tries to accomplish in trying to rid themselves of those feelings. It’s something that plenty of viewers will be able to relate to, as having someone to love them and finding companionship is such a relatable topic that Naofel’s journey will resonate well with many. The only thing is Naofel does make some decisions that some may find a bit odd or unsettling.
While it plays into the film’s themes of doing whatever one can do to achieve happiness, the way in which he approaches trying to be more involved in Gabrielle’s life can’t be completely justified, something which the screenplay explicitly calls out. But even though the movie is self-aware doesn’t always mean it makes the character completely sympathetic. However, that being said, he’s also not flat-out unlikable.
The only other major issue this movie has is that it takes quite some time for the two parallel stories to come together and show how exactly they’re related. While one can infer in a way how they are related, it waits quite some time to bring everything full circle. And because each story is very tonally different, it sometimes feels like one could be watching two different movies. In a way, it is a bit obvious what the connection is, though the movie somewhat treats like it was a huge surprise. While the payoff is overall solid, the journey getting there is a bit jarring, even though both stories were overall great to watch.
I Lost My Body is a nice gem of a film that is one of the year’s better animated films. It’s a gorgeous movie that relies on its animation to bring scenes to life and move its characters forward, rather than going for so many dialogue-driven scenes, and it’s quite refreshing. While there are some questionable character choices made and it does take some time for its two storylines to truly tie together, it pays off well, making what could have been a silly film into something sweet, touching, and an overall really enjoyable experience.
Recommendation: Watch It
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