The Last Belle
2011 · 20m · Reino Unido
Directed by Neil Boyle
Genres: animation, comedy, romance
Tones: darkly comic, whimsical
Wally and Rosie prepare separately for a blind date in London. While Rosie waits in a bar imagining a wonderful evening, a hungover Wally endures a frantic, nightmarish race across the city to arrive on time.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The dual-timeline structure is almost clever enough to justify itself, but the film leans too hard on rom-com beats to really subvert anything—it's *Amelie* with a hangover gimmick, which is precisely the kind of whimsy that makes contrarians groan.
Boyle demonstrates assured control of animated form and tonal balance, threading a clean line between Rosie's romantic reverie and Wally's slapstick descent; it's a formally accomplished entry in the British indie animation lineage, though the premise itself feels ancestral rather than urgent.
The single brilliant choice here is the sound design during Wally's race—the mounting cacophony of London collapsing around him while Rosie's timeline stays almost silent—transforms what could've been a gimmick into genuine emotional resonance on a modest animation budget.