GREAT LINES, BEAUTIFUL LINES: Review: Sloths are slow and boring, but A Sloth Story is anything but
February 27, 2025
Life comes at you fast, even if you're more used to moving slow.
A Sloth Story (also known as The Sloth Lane) opens with Laura, the feisty youngest member of the Romero Flores family, telling us that sloths are the slowest, laziest, and most boring animals in the world. And she should know, because she is one. She's often frustrated by her family's sluggish pace. She wants to live in the fast lane, see more of the world, find her own path. It's hard to be satisfied with a life that doesn't match your speed.
Laura's family is, ironically, in the food business. Even if there's no line, an order might take a couple hours to be ready to go. It's a great bit, one that made me think of the DMV in Zootopia. But the wait isn't only due to the sloth-iness of it all. Laura's mom, Gabriela, is also a stickler for the details. She uses a family cookbook that has been passed down for generations, one that's full of notes, reminders, and tips for getting each recipe just right. She knows that food is a labor of love, one that takes time, and one that's worth the wait. Laura's always-dancing father Luis imparts similar lessons as he tends to his garden, planting vegetables and watching flowers bloom: things take time, and it's worth slowing down to savor the sweet and beautiful moments.
But Laura is more inspired by Dotti Pace, a cheetah who runs a fast food franchise is Sanctuary City, a franchise that is growing too fast. More locations keep opening, but there aren't enough customers for the business to remain viable. Also an issue: the limited menu that doesn't taste particularly good. Dotti's motto is "Food is fuel," and yeah, she sometimes feels like she's essentially a drug pusher, as she tries to come up with a new menu item that is packed with Zoom, a chemical that gives you a burst of energy (and then some).
After a storm wrecks the family home/restaurant, Laura's family (also including brother Mani, who's mostly there to round things out, and sort of serve as a mellow counterpart to his sister) moves to the city, where they struggle to pick up the pace, and keep in step with each other.
I was really taken with how A Sloth Story handles its family dynamics. At first, I thought the film was aiming for something about finding people who can keep up with you. Laura makes some friends who teach her cricket, a game that encourages her to throw as fast as she can. These friends help the city feel more like home, and Kayleigh the bilby (not a rat) is maybe the star of the show for me: her voice is so cute, she gets a lot of the funniest lines, and she's just adorable all around.
But ultimately, I think the film's message is more poignant, and is more about realizing you aren't always going to be going the same speed as the ones you love. This is especially true as you watch your parents age. Gabriela's memory is getting worse and worse, and Laura is so focused on herself that she doesn't even see the signs. Instead, she feels slighted and hurt, like she isn't being seen and heard. Only when she slows down a bit, listens, opens herself up, does she finally understand her mom's situation. The film posits that you should try to meet people where they're at. If you can't walk a mile in their shoes, you can at least walk that mile with them, however fast they're going. It's worth it to spend that time with them, to treasure every moment, because you don't know when they'll be gone.
If that sounds a little heavy, it is. I cried my way through the film's last scenes. But this is largely a very fun and nimble watch. The animation is maybe my favorite kind of computer animation: it looks almost like stop-motion. The characters' movements aren't quite fluid, instead having that nice, barely-noticeable bit of choppiness to them. The music is lively and bright, and the character designs are great, especially Dotti (purple suit, gold tooth, girlboss for real) and, of course, Kayleigh. I also really loved the neon-lit action-packed finale, which was a lot of fun.
The story doesn't a great job popping along, and the humor is on point. There are so many fun supporting characters and comedic beats. There's a burger mascot who has a lot of fun moments, and the whole voice cast does great work (the most famous name is Leslie Jones as Dotti -- she eats it up).
A Sloth Story hits home a lot of familiar themes and story moments, telling a story about a family finding their way to each other, understanding each other more, loving each other more, supporting each other more. It's the kind of thing that's easy to fall for, because it's all earnest and true, and delivered with humor and heart. Any movie that can make me laugh this much along the way, only to have me in tears at the end, is an easy recommendation.
