2 stars (out of 4)

(Released 2012)

This TIFF entry is a French-language animated 3-D musical comedy based on a French manga (IIRC).  The story is about a family that runs a shop specializing in poisons, nooses, weapons and other means of committing suicide, and about what happens when a boy with an incongruously sunny disposition is born into the family.

The film was made with obvious love and attention to detail (the English subtitles for the songs were done in rhyme), but the story is ultimately too thin and predictable to provide enough interest.  The black humour was essentially one joke told over and over (a customer matter-of-factly choosing suicide and a shopkeeper helpfully providing him with the means).