The Boxtrolls

A children's movie whose end-credits song is the mercilessly satiric "Little Boxes," Malvina Reynolds's sharply observed take on middle-class conformity, obviously had storytelling ambitions other than just entertaining the wee ones for 90 minutes. One might assume it was a glib choice, picked because the movie's title, "The Boxtrolls," overlaps nicely with the song's. But the claymation wizards at Laika, the daring animation studio that was also responsible for the painstakingly sculpted wonders "Coraline" and "ParaNorman," clearly are not prone to doing anything thoughtlessly.

Loosely based on Alan Snow's "Here Be Monsters!," "The Boxtrolls" is another Laika fable with a preadolescent protagonist surrounded by unseeing and fearful adults existing on automatic pilot while bad things happen around them or, in some cases, because of them. Set in a towering Victorian hellhole called Cheesebridge, where a punctilious appreciation of stinky cheeses is at the heart of the town's rigid class structure, "The Boxtrolls" has about as much faith in upward mobility as a Thomas Hardy novel. Occupying the society's lowest possible place, literally and figuratively, is an eponymous band of shriveled subterranean tinkerers, who emerge from the sewers every night to scavenge through the wasteful surface-dwellers' trash. Although each of their ugly-cute bodies is only covered by a battered cardboard box, the boxtrolls' real societal handicap comes from an unfair reputation as baby murderers.

If it all sounds a bit too disturbing for children, or perhaps even their parents, just look again at the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm or listen to a few uncensored Mother Goose nursery rhymes; then, follow that up by watching some classic Disney parental carnage (poor Bambi!). When it comes to telling children that life can be an absolute nightmare, especially from their tiny perspectives, "The Boxtrolls" is certainly not alone in its honesty.

Voiced by Ben Kingsley with malevolent brio, the boxtrolls' arch nemesis is the descriptively named Archibald Snatcher, a sneering, blotchy-skinned striver who will seemingly resort to any dastardly deed if it helps him achieve his blighted soul's ultimate desire: the attainment of a soaring white hat that will grant him membership in the ultra-exclusive cheese-eating club of Lord Portley-Rind (Jared Harris), the heedless head of the town's ruling elite. The fact that Snatcher is allergic to cheese and consuming it puts his life in comically grotesque danger is beside the point; if, according to his own warped ideals, his life is to have any meaning, Snatcher must speak haughtily about ridiculously expensive brie in the presence of other supercilious men with soaring white hats. There are certainly times during "The Boxtrolls" when you wonder if Edward Albee and Tom Stoppard teamed up to write it.

Actual credit for the cleverly absurd script belongs to Irena Brignull and Adam Pava, who deftly weave resonant moral arguments into their admirably inventive narrative. Things start off with Snatcher already knee-deep in his fiendish plot, falsely accusing the boxtrolls of kidnapping the baby of an eccentric local inventor (Simon Pegg). Snatcher further warns Lord Portley-Rind that the harmless trash aficionados, who actually saved the baby from Snatcher's diabolical clutches, plan to steal -- and kill -- all the children of Cheesebridge. His paranoia piqued, the ignoble nobleman empowers Snatcher and his henchmen (Nick Frost, Richard Ayoade, and Tracy Morgan) to track down and exterminate all of the boxtrolls. In return for this vile service, Lord Portley-Rind agrees to possibly, maybe, at some uncertain future date, deign to eat a cheese cube in Snatcher's presence.

Brignull, Pava, and co-directors Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi are not willing, however, to let the boxtrolls simply wallow in victimhood. At first, the only human who cares for the boxtrolls (or so we think) is their putative infant prey, whom they lovingly raised to be a happy, healthy, bug-eating boy. Named Eggs (Isaac Hempstead Wright) for the label on his own corrugated covering, he eventually teams up with Lord Portley Rind's neglected and ghoulish daughter Winnie (Elle Fanning) to defend the only family he has ever known from Snatcher's deadly lies.

But Eggs also encourages the boxtrolls to help themselves rather than always behaving like scared turtles, futilely disappearing into their cardboard shells whenever Snatcher, or some other danger, approaches. Having returned to the surface, Eggs quickly learns that you cannot rely on the Lord Portley-Rinds of this world to come to your rescue -- a worthwhile lesson for children of all ages.