The morphing faces, wriggling limbs, and suggestive images in the new trailer for Cheatin’ may be a bit off-putting, if you’re unfamiliar with the work of animator and cartoonist, Bill Plympton. For those of you who have seen films like I Married a Strange Person! (1997) and Hair High (2004), or shorts like Footprints (2014) and the 1987 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film-nominee Your Face, this new film will look like hyper-weird, hyper-creative, business as usual.
Cheatin’ was nominated for numerous awards in 2014, including three Annies (Best Animated Feature, Outstanding Achievement in Directing in an Animated Feature Production, and Outstanding Achievement in Music in an Animated Feature Production), and won the Special Jury Award for Feature Film at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival.
In a fateful bumper car collision, Jake and Ella meet and become the most loving couple in the long history of romance. But when a scheming “other” woman drives a wedge of jealousy into their perfect courtship, insecurity and hatred spell out an untimely fate. With only the help of a disgraced magician and his forbidden “soul machine”, Ella takes the form of Jake’s numerous lovers, desperately fighting through the malfunction and deceit as they try to reclaim their destiny.
Plympton wrote and directed the film, and got it funded partially through Kickstarter. Cheatin’ will be “in theaters and available online in April, 2015” according to its website.
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