Duet (2014)

This is an animated short produced and directed by Glen Keane. There will be spoilers ahead:The plot of this short is minimal. It follows a boy, his dog and a girl from the time they first cross paths as babies and a puppy through their lives on into young adulthood. Just the barest of plots, a sketch of a story, really, but the animation is so beautifully executed that it carries the short (which, after all, is less than four minutes in any case) and lifts it from the ordinary to the extraordinary.All three of the principals are fully realized characters and they are almost perpetually in motion. The boy is always running, jumping, tumbling and climbing, with his dog always around often ahead or alongside, occasionally behind and also forever in motion. Not to be outdone, the girl more than holds her own and dances in whatever she does. She is grace and beauty personified.The two frequently cross paths throughout their lives, with solo activity interspersed between meetings and some symbolic visuals showing up a few times. The girl is seen almost as though she's in flight while dancing and breaks up into a flock of birds at one point.The ending of the short is almost inevitable and is beautifully done, like everything else in the short. This is just my opinion, of course, but I think this short should at least have been nominated for the Academy Award. The five finalists were all very good shorts, but this was one of the ten shorts shortlisted for nomination and this was just a shade better than one or two of the five nominees. This is available for purchase online and is well worth watching. Most highly recommended.

Glen Keane's Duet works for the most part thanks to its kinetic energy and everything in it to move and operate with a graceful fluidity, almost effectively making this short dreamlike. Produced as part of Google's Spotlight Stories, the short consists of two young characters, a boy and a girl, who enjoy dancing and allowing themselves to be lost in the motions of their body, with their world consisting of white outlines representing characters, objects, and locations all encompassed in a midnight blue palette. The whimsical factor in Duet is quite high, and at four minutes, there's little to note other than it's a serviceable short that at least manages to halfway mesmerize thanks to its ability to always have something constantly moving and a static, single-color background.Directed by: Glen Keane.

"Duet" is by Glen Keane. While this is Keane's first job directing, he has worked on many great Disney films, such as "The Little Mermaid", "Aladdin", "Beauty and the Beast", "Tangled" as well as one of my favorite Disneyworld attractions, Philharmagic. According to my daughter, Keane is 'a legend'! His film is lovely but very unconventional. It has no dialog and is very, very artistically done. However, it's a style of film that I doubt would appeal to everyone. It tells the story of the lives of a little girl and a little boy as they grow but instead of the usual manner of telling the tale, it is like visual poetry--a truly lovely and memorable job.

'DUET': Two and a Half Stars (Out of Five)A 4 minute animated short film (featured in theaters as a 'Highly Commended' animated short; played with the '2015 Oscar Nominated Animated Short Films'). It was directed by Glen Keane and tells the story of a couple, named Mia and Tosh, who perform a beautiful 'life dance' together; the 'duet' of the title. There's no real story or character development in it, but it is always beautiful and somewhat interesting to look at. Nothing too special but I'm sure fans of animation, dancing or Glen Keane, will still enjoy it. It's probably my least favorite of the 2015 'highly commended' or 'Oscar nominated' animated shorts though.Watch our movie review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: http://youtu.be/D17O2xOoOCw