Oscars 2024: The Punk Power of Nimona

Pink is not a colour that we usually associate with rebellion — unless you’ve seen Nimona (2023). Within five minutes of appearing on screen, Nimona casually destroys a highly-guarded compound and transforms into the following: A gigantic rhinoceros, an armadillo, a bear, a bird, a squirrel, a gorilla, an ostrich, a whale. All of them in the same shade of pink. Oh, and all the while, she’s fighting off a legion of armed guards in order to save a knight in shining armour from certain death. After busting herself and the knight out, Nimona takes the knight to safety, single handedly. “I dragged you for, like, seven miles,” Nimona says casually, as though it’s perfectly normal for a kid to be able to do this with someone twice her size. “Your head might have bounced on the sidewalk a few times.” The lack of regret in her voice — Chloë Grace Moretz is brilliant as Nimona — is unmistakable and delightful. 

A shapeshifter and a veritable goddess of wisecracks, Nimona’s preferred human form is that of a teenager with freckles, fangs, pink hair and a punk haircut. She’s counter-culture in every way you can imagine, and in ways that you probably can’t. For one, Nimona is desperate to turn the beleaguered knight Ballister Boldheart (voiced by Riz Ahmed) into the ideal villain of her dreams while all Ballister wants to do is clear his name because he can’t bear to be thought of as a killer. They’re the classic example of opposites attracting, only to realise they have a lot more in common than they’d initially perceived. 

Among the myriad ways that Nimona goes against the grain of mainstream animated films is with its focus on the friendship between Nimona and Ballister, and also in the way the film frames queerness, advocating for inclusivity. Written by Robert L. Baird and Lloyd Taylor, and directed by Nick Bruno and Troy Quane, Nimona revels in subverting formulae and chucking tropes out of the window. One of Nimona’s catchphrases may be “metal”, but this is a film that looks and feels distinctively punk.

A lot of this is in the writing, which draws on the Nimona graphic novels by cartoonist ND Stevenson. Brought to life by Ahmed and Moretz’s outstanding voice acting, the film revels in mischief and irreverence, but it’s also alert to the emotional depth that these characters and their stories command. Ahmed’s Ballister is constantly horrified by Nimona’s eagerness to go on a rampage, which makes for very funny moments, but the knight being a foil to Nimona also serves to show us how dissent is viewed and often misunderstood. The film begins as Ballister’s story, but quickly becomes Nimona’s. Her humour and snark turn out to be her coping mechanisms against a world that sees her as a monster for no fault of her own. If you’re looking to find parallels with our world, Nimona is rich with metaphors, idealism and progressive values. If you’d rather just go on a rollicking ride that focuses on fantasy, the film delivers all the thrills, giggles and emotional sniffles.

Visually, Nimona is a clever mix of styles that often tips its hat to the graphic novel and adds fantastical flourishes. It also has a tonal palette that makes it stand apart from the usual animated fare. Details are driven by intention. For instance, Ballister, the follower of rules, is drawn in squarish shapes and moves in neatly geometric lines. In contrast, Nimona is all swirls and fluidity. “Everything in the film is character driven, and emotionally driven,” said animation director Theodore Ty in an interview. “Nick and Troy and I really wanted to work on not making an overt animation style. Like you wouldn't even say it was cartoony or realistic, because we go across the whole range.”

To think that if animation legend Disney had its way, this film would never have been made.

The feature film adaptation of Nimona is an adventure in itself, with 20th Century Fox Animation first picking up the rights to adapt Stevenson’s graphic novel series in 2015. After the Walt Disney Company completed its acquisition of Fox, delays started hitting the project. A year after the film’s original release date of February 2020, Disney announced it was shutting down Blue Sky Studios, which was best known for the Ice Age franchise and was producing Nimona. At the time, 10 months of production were left for the film to be completed. While the internet mourned Nimona’s cancellation and rumours swirled about the film having got pushback from Disney because it explored LGBTQ themes, Nimona was being shopped around to other studios.

 (It’s worth pointing out that while Nimona is highly recommended for viewing with kids, one of the characters is called, ahem, Goldenloin.) 

In 2022, Annapurna Pictures picked up the film and a year later, Nimona came out on Netflix. In 2024, Nimona has been nominated for best animated feature at the Oscars. Admittedly, Studio Ghibli’s The Boy and the Heron is the frontrunner in this category, but to have come this far is already an unlikely fairy tale for the film’s pink, punk rockstar.