CINEMA: Bunny and the Bull

Although this first film outing by writer/director Paul King of The Mighty Boosh fame is not entirely successful, its slightly bonkers (in a gentle, caring, sharing way) format is a bit like a puppy just desperate for you to love it, and to a certain extent you will want to pat it on the head and give it a treat.

Shot in a highly imaginative style with frequent animated sequences, it details the utter despair young Stephen (a forlorn-looking Ed Hogg) is living in. Stephen has OCD and his flat is full of all the detritus of his life he cannot bear to throw away.

But when his fiercely regimented routine is disrupted he has a psychotic episode catapulting him back to a road trip across Europe he shared with his ebullient friend Bunny (Simon Franaby from TV’s Jam & Jerusalem), where they met equally odd Spanish waitress Eloisa (Veronica Echegui), had some surreal experiences and, in a final odd twist of fate, severed their friendship forever. It is only by reliving this painful period of his life Stephen can lay his ghosts to rest and finally manage to unlock his own front door and face the world again.

There is plenty to admire and applaud in this visually stylish, wildly imaginative movie, especially the stop-animated sequences that have a great childish charm. Also, the friendship between the really rather selfish Bunny and the compliant, deferential Stephen certainly rings true; Bunny’s lust for life spurring Stephen on to feats of derring-do he would never normally even contemplate.

But the film cannot sustain its feel or momentum and ends up like a series of sometimes striking vignettes that don’t really flow smoothly together. However, do watch out for an almost unrecognisable Noel Fielding as a day-glo tanned would-be bull fighter and a scene with an Eastern European vagrant who has, shall we say, an extra-specially close relationship with his dogs.