I Lost My Body (2019)

3 Stars (out of 4)

Hand Over

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

This hand-drawn animated movie from France starts with genuine amazement, suggesting the promise of something we've never seen before. In I Lost My Body, a severed hand frees itself from a refrigerator in what appears to be a lab or a hospital, and with great effort (skittering on its fingertips), it eludes capture and escapes. Then the movie flashes back to the hand's owner, Naoufel (voiced by Hakim Faris) and things grow quite a bit more ordinary and predictable. As an ineffectual pizza delivery man, he falls in love with one of his customers, Gabrielle (voiced by Victoire Du Bois) and then takes a job at a woodshop to be near her. Shy and uncertain, he mostly just stalks her, and builds her an igloo on the roof of the building. The various saws and blades in the woodshop provide a clue as to what will happen to the hand. The animation is quite simple, and even rudimentary at times, which can be both refreshing and disappointing.