Directed by Sylvain Chomet | Written by Chomet, based on the memoirs of Marcel Pagnol, and an original idea by Nicolas Pagnol, Ashargin Poiré, and Valérie Puech | 90 min | ▲1/2 

“Marseille without the accent wouldn’t be Marseille!” So says Marcel Pagnol, writer-playwright-turned-filmmaker-turned-playwright. And A Magnificent Life in English doesn’t feel especially, authentically French — here we have a gorgeous-looking animation for adults from the filmmaker who gave us The Triplets of Belleville and The Illusionist, but this is a biography of a renowned French writer and filmmaker, so there’s absolutely no reason we should be getting a selection of British-accented voice actors and not the original French with subtitles. It makes the entire project feel unpleasantly false, an irony given that the Pagnol refused to allow his films to be dubbed into German during the Second World War.

Even more problematic, having no previous association with Pagnol it’s hard to muster any interest or sentiment for this story of a slightly boring, struggling creative connected by ghosts to his past. Cinephiles may find some interest as the film tells its tale against the backdrop of the French film industry in the 1930s and 40s, but otherwise this a dryly reverent hagiography. Count on Chomet to produce animation that’s never less than extraordinary, but there’s none of the anarchic joy of his earlier work in a deeply hermetic effort.