A crushing disappointment by almost any standard, Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Parronaud’s followup to the delightful Persepolis is a bad idea poorly realized. Dumping animation for stylized live action didn’t have to be a dealbreaker, but the pair have no idea how to calibrate flesh-and-blood performances, and the weaker story (taken from Satrapi’s graphic novel) certainly doesn’t help. Mathieu Amalric, as a violinist who loses the will to live after his wife smashes his prize instrument, is game to go broad, but the movie lets his just-this-side-of-mugging performance go flat, dissipating in the empty space around him. Disconnected from any sense of the tangible world, Chicken With Plums has the problems you’d fear from an animated film: It’s stilted, abstract, flavorless. Perhaps, having evaded the pitfalls while making Persepolis, Satrapi and Parronaud decided to try dropping into a few holes for a change.
