At Home With Mrs. Hen

Director: Tali

Production Company: National Film Board Of Canada www.nfb.ca  

Year Released: 2006

Length: 7 minutes 52 seconds

Genre: Animation 

3 ½ Stars 

Reviewed By: Christopher Williams 

Mrs. Hen has a birds’ life, she seems to slave away and yet get no dishes done, she seems to take care of her children and yet they seem not to be parented. Another animated film by the National Film Board Of Canada, At Home With Mrs. Hen is the brain child of Tali. It is a basic form of animation with pencil drawings and flashes of colour added in. Mrs. Hen has an out of control child who throws dinner around like a scene out of The Miracle Worker, demanding (more like squawking) that he wants better, then he waddles off to the TV to play video games; this is obviously a typical Hen’s childhood! 

The spoiled child pushes the docile Mother to the edge and what follows seems to be an all too typical approach to parenting, only the child’s response seems overly optimistic on Tali’s part. I felt sorry for the youngest child as it is soon to be the middle child and is already getting lost in the scuffle. At Home With Mrs. Hen seems to accurately portray current day parenting, which seems all too often to be a bid for power and control, particularly from the child’s perspective. Mrs. Hen, like most Mother’s in my local grocery store, never seems to retaliate until she is pushed to the maximum, then she does something almost too hostile. Little hen is taught a lesson in animation, but not often enough in the real world. At Home With Mrs. Hen seemed almost sad in its truth and was a tender and frustrating, at times, commentary. Ironically enough, this entire animated short was related without dialogue!  

Direction, Script, Animation: Tali

Consultant to the Director, Sound & Picture editing: Fernand Belanger

Music: Rene Lussier

Producer: Marc Bertrand