A Tender Swim Toward Selfhood

MOVIE REVIEW
Julián
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Genre: Animation, Family, Fantasy
Year Released: 2026
Runtime: 1h 25m
Director: Louise Bagnall
Writers: Juliany Taveras; based on the book JULIÁN IS A MERMAID by Jessica Love
Cast: Knyght Darius Jack, Milcania Diaz-Rojas, Zariah Georgia Ellis, Emma So, Avery Star Pryce Tibayan, Kim Roberts, Stephanie Herrera, Yanna McIntosh, Manuel Rodriguez-Saenz, Naomi Díaz, Lisa-Kaindé Diaz
Where to Watch: shown at the 2026 Annecy International Animation Film Festival

RAVING REVIEW: JULIÁN explores childhood as a place where the real and imagined worlds are never far apart. An apartment can become a treasure hunt, a Brooklyn block can open toward fascination, and a child’s dream can grow large enough to reshape an entire summer. Adapted from Jessica Love’s beloved picture book JULIÁN IS A MERMAID, Louise Bagnall’s animated feature takes a story known for its tenderness and expands it without losing the emotion that made the original resonate. It’s a film about gender expression, family, Caribbean heritage, and self-discovery, but it never reduces Julián to anything less. He’s allowed to be a child first. He’s curious, watchful, imaginative, nervous, enchanted, and ready to become something he doesn’t yet have a way to explain.

The film follows a wide-eyed Julián as he spends the summer in New York City with an Abuela he barely knows. Their relationship begins with distance, not hostility, and that matters a lot. JULIÁN doesn’t create a generational conflict just to add drama to the story. Instead, it finds tension in unfamiliarity. Julián is stepping into a family world that feels both connected to him and slightly out of reach. Abuela’s apartment, her neighborhood, her stories, and the community around her awaken pieces of him that have been waiting for permission to surface. That awakening is where the film finds its magic.

Cartoon Saloon’s hand-drawn approach suits the material beautifully. JULIÁN has the warmth and fluidity expected from the studio behind WOLFWALKERS, THE BREADWINNER, and SONG OF THE SEA, while still carving out its own visual style. The animation feels tactile, lines breathe. Colors carry emotion without smothering the frame. The film moves between city life and fantasy with a grace that makes both worlds feel connected, as though Julián’s imagination has been hiding inside this world all along.

Bagnall’s background in short-form animation is evident in the film’s attention to small gestures. A glance lingers just long enough. A costume, a shell, a pattern, or a burst of movement can say more than any dialogue ever could in a moment like this. That sensitivity is crucial because JULIÁN is working with identity in a way that demands care. The film doesn’t rush to define Julián for the audience. It lets him explore. His fascination with mermaids isn’t treated as just a side note, a phase, or a problem to be solved. It’s a doorway to self-expression, and the film respects the courage it takes for a child to walk through it.

Knyght Darius Jack brings Julián to life with a performance that carries innocence without making him feel passive. Julián observes before he speaks, absorbs before he acts, and dreams before he understands what those dreams might cost him. Milcania Diaz-Rojas gives Abuela the film’s emotion, capturing a woman whose love is practical, watchful, and gradually more expansive than Julián may expect. Their dynamic gives the movie its heart. It’s not built on acceptance speeches as much as the smaller, more meaningful experience of being seen.

When JULIÁN moves from the streets of Brooklyn into the depths of the ocean, it doesn’t feel like a detour into fantasy. It feels like a child’s inner world reaching full scale. The sea imagery brings in myth, ancestry, spirituality, and liberation without turning the film into a catalog of symbols. There’s a sense that Julián’s personal awakening is tied to something older and larger than himself, and that connection deepens the movie’s reach. This isn’t only a story about who Julián wants to become. It’s also about the heritage, memory, and community that help him recognize what has been inside him from the beginning.

What makes JULIÁN special is its refusal to turn any of the ideas it explores into weakness. The film is gentle, but it isn’t any less for that. It knows that self-expression can be dangerous for children because the world often teaches them to be embarrassed before they even know what they’ve done wrong. Julián’s journey is joyful, but the joy has stakes. The act of imagining himself as a mermaid carries the thrill of play and the risk of exposure.

This is a film for children who need to see their wonder taken seriously, parents and grandparents who need to remember how much a child can say without saying much at all, and adults who may recognize pieces of their younger selves in Julián’s quiet longing. It’s accessible without flattening its themes and emotionally direct without talking down to its audience.

The beauty doesn’t come from pretending acceptance is simple. It comes from showing how powerful it can be when someone makes room for a child’s reality before that child can defend it. Bagnall’s film finds a rare balance between the personal and the mythic, the everyday and the magical, the personal and the ancestral. It’s tender, gorgeous, alive, and deeply human.

JULIÁN is a radiant animated coming-of-age story about becoming visible to yourself and to the people who love you. Its emotional clarity, visuals, and compassionate understanding of childhood make it one of the year’s most moving animated films. It doesn’t shout its message. It opens a door, fills the room with color and joy, and then lets Julián step through.

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[photo courtesy of AIRCRAFT PICTURES, BCP ASSET MANAGEMENT, CAA MEDIA FINANCE, CARTOON SALOON, CINESTAR PICTURES, CRAVE, GURU ANIMATION STUDIO, MÉLUSINE PRODUCTIONS, NEW EUROPE FILM SALES, SUN CREATURE STUDIO, WYCHWOOD MEDIA]

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