With utterly stunning computer animation, “One Rat Short” is the surprisingly touching and tragic story of a subway rat and his journey for food that ends up in romance. After watching his friends suffer the fate of electricity, a brown rat seeks out a bag of cheese puffs that escaped being eaten by the rats underground. Attempting to feed on the morsel, he journeys across the city to track down the inanimate bag, and drops into a medical testing laboratory where he falls in love with a white rat simply named 2W-45.
The two fall head over heels in love, and now he must battle against the security robot to ensure his partner’s safe escape. Weil composes the story in a purely dramatic atmosphere with utterly engaging characters being drawn from the most unlikely of beings. The tragic romance between the two rodents ends up becoming shockingly compelling, as I found myself rooting for the brown rat to save his love from the clutches of imminent death. Weil’s film is simple, yet filled with heart wrenching emotions, a uniquely epic love story, and animation worthy of Pixar.
