The Moomins are a topic that I feel I understand less the more I try to get my head around them. I tackled another Moomin film, Moomin and Midsummer Madness, around ten years ago so I should have been ready for this. And yet, here I am, looking at this film all…

A brief refresher, the Moomins are a multimedia franchise created by Finnish author Tove Jansson that encompasses picture books, novels, short stories, TV shows, movies, theme parks and a comic strip written and illustrated by Jansson herself. The comic strip that inspired today’s film, Moomins on the Riviera, began in 1954 and ran until 1975. This was actually the second Moomins comic strip, the first having appeared in a left wing newspaper but which failed because the readership considered the Moomins to be “too bourgeois”, because even in the late forties there were people who needed to touch some fucking grass.

So what’s it all about?

The series features things called Moomins doing stuff.

I can’t really get more specific than that.

First off this movie gave me one hell of a nasty shock. I’m watching the opening credits with beautiful vistas of Moomin valley which perfectly recreate Jansson’s signature style when who do I see?

Now, you might be thinking “holy shit that’s a cool name” and it is. But see, I know this motherfucker, and he’s not Patrick Stewart working incognito and half-assing his alibi. Picard worked on The Bots Master, a TV show we covered on the podcast and which is currently my choice for worst cartoon show I have ever seen. Which puts him squarely on my shit list. But, this movie is so utterly at odds tonally with that show that I have decided that Picard was just led astray by bad men. Or that he’s matured and grown as an artist, who can say?

Anyway, the Moomins and all their forest friends are having a midnight party around a bonfire, dancing and playing music before the inevitable sacrifice to the Wicker Man. We have Moomin, Moominpappa, Moominmomma and Moomin’s girlfriend the Snorkmaiden.

Unfortunately, the light from the bonfire confuses some passing pirates which causes their ship to run aground. The pirates abandon their ship along with their prisoners, Mymble and Little My. Okay…so. The Mymbles are recurring characters in Jansson’s oeuvre. According to Wikipedia, the word “mymble” comes from a “slang word used by Tove Jansson’s circle” which I think is code for “lesbian street argot”. They’re red-headed girls who are all related and these two are sisters and the youngest one, Little My, is a threat to every living thing on Earth. And they hang around the Moomins for no particular reason. Got it? Okay.

So, this movie is not in any damn hurry to get anywhere. In fact, despite being a very svelte hour and thirteen minutes, it moves at an absolutely glacial pace. For example, the pirates abandon ship, leaving Little My and Mymble to drown. A typical screenplay would then have the Moomins notice the sinking ship, mount a rescue, save the Mymbles and then carry on from there. Not Moomins on the Riviera, which waits until the next morning, has a long scene where Moomin has to choose between helping Snorkmaiden practice her play, go fishing with his buddy Snufkin or go swimming with Moominmomma. This doesn’t have any payoff. It doesn’t lead to anything. It’s just (if you’re feeling generous) a low-key, low-stakes, slice of life story beat or (if you’re not feeling generous) wasting your god-damned time.

Only then do they notice the sinking pirate ship and Moomin swims out to rescue Mymble, which earns him the ire of Snorkmaiden. Because, obviously, a real boyfriend would let her drown before his eyes. That’s a little something called “respecting your relationship”.

Anyway, Moominmomma suggests that they strip the pirate ship of any treasure they can find.

They find fireworks, a chest full of seeds, a chest full of gold and a load of magazines. The pirates arrive and take back the gold, but leave them with the rest. The Moomins read the magazines and become enchanted with the Riviera, and decide to go on holiday to escape the vicious grinding rat-race of their daily lives.

The Moomins set sail in a small row boat, with Little My tagging along. In the middle of a storm.

They wind up stranded on a desert island. Nothing much happens here except that a box drifts ashore full of foul mouthed bugs who the Moomins gather up and put in a sack. If you’re coming away with the impression that this is less a story and more a series of vignettes linked by vibes and dream logic, that is not an unfair take.

Anyway, that night Moomin and Snorkmaiden are sitting out on a cliff bemoaning the fact that they’ll never reach the Riviera, when suddenly a nearby coastline lights up and they realise the Riviera is literally next door. So, that was easy.

The rest of the movie is really just slice of life shenanigans as the Bohemian Moomins upset the stuffy affluent ways of the Riviera elite. Moominpappa makes friends with an artist named Marquis Mongaga who wants to give up being rich and live like the poor Moomins because then he’ll be a real artist.

Mongaga sculpts elephant statues and Moominpoppa helps him dump a statue of the local governor in the river and replace it with one of his own.

Meanwhile, Snorkmaiden tries to fit in with the wealthy denizens of the Riviera. She tries her hand at the casino and ends up winning big and starts hanging out with style icon Audrey Glamour and playboy Clark Tresco and trying on fancy clothes in the boutiques.

Moomin gets so jealous of Snorkmaiden hanging out with Tresco that he, of course, sits down with him and tries to work through their issues in a mature and constructive…

Sorry, Moomin chooses to CHALLENGE TRESCO TO A DUAL for breathing in the direction of his woman and ends up beating him unconscious with the butt of a sword.

All these eccentric shenanigans and violent assaults makes the manager of their hotel realise that the Moomins are not members of the aristocracy like they thought (flawless logic there, lads) and they get evicted from the hotel and are landed with a huge bill for the room. But Snorkmaiden pays the bill out of her casino winnings and then just gives the rest of her vast fortune as a tip to the hotel staff because it’s just, like, money, man.

The Moomins decide that rich people are trash and they had best be off, but before they go they try to help Mongaga find homes for his elephant statues. They gift one to the Mayor, only for him to realise that they were the ones who tossed the Governor’s statue in the river and order their arrest.

But, they sic the foul-mouthed bugs on the police which causes a massive brawl to break out and the Moomins escape back to their lives of decadent bourgeois hedonism.

They sail back to Moomin Valley, but get caught in a storm and have to jettison pretty much everything they brought with them from the Riviera which symbolises…you get what it symbolises. And the movie ends with nothing of consequence having really been achieved but it looked nice and the vibes were chill so who cares really?

Moomins.

***

Scoring

Animation:  16/20

Beautiful backgrounds and absolutely flawless translation of Jansson’s style.

Leads: 11/20

As always, Moomin is a perfect blank slate of a protagonist except now we know he has murder in his heart which is good for an extra point or two.

Villain: N/A

Supporting Characters: 12/20

“Most of the best intentionally funny lines and best unintentionally funny weirdness comes from the supporting characters.” As true today as when I wrote it a decade ago.

Music: 14/20

A wonderful, charming mixture of Nordic folk and fin-de-siécle French music that suits the subject matter like a glove.

FINAL SCORE: 63%

NEXT UPDATE: I am taking off August for holidays and other writing projects but I’ll be back on September 5th with a new review and to launch Shortstember 2025!

NEXT TIME: Look, as long as they finally do Taskmaster justice, that’s all I ask…