Lee Unkrich

Lee Unkrich keeps the camera under control, even when animation would let it go anywhere. He favours the staging, composition and measured camera movement of live action, rather than sending us flying simply because he can. We rate his care with performance, most clearly in the warm, funny Coco (2017). There, the fear of being forgotten matters more than the busy adventure plot, which too often gets in the way.

His route through Pixar helps explain that restraint. He edited Toy Story (1995), then co-directed Toy Story 2 (1999), Monsters, Inc. (2001) and Finding Nemo (2003). Toy Story 3 (2010) was his solo directorial debut, but becoming a director did not mean leaving the cutting room behind. He shares Coco's editing credit with Steve Bloom, maintaining a direct hand in how long a scene lasts and when we move to the next one.

Coco also shows what he gains by looking closely at a place before building an animated version of it. Research trips to Mexico informed its visual and sound details, and the Land of the Dead rewards that attention with plenty to look at. Anthony Gonzalez voices Miguel Rivera, at the centre of a story set around Mexico's Day of the Dead. We were moved by Miguel's journey through the afterlife because it takes the fear of being forgotten seriously without pretending death is harmless. That is a difficult subject for a family musical, and Unkrich allows it to remain difficult.

The screenplay by Matthew Aldrich and co-director Adrian Molina is less sure about how many complications that subject needs. The opening has a fair amount to explain, and later passages can feel like delays rather than developments. Unkrich and Bloom keep things brisk, but faster cutting cannot make an unnecessary detour useful. We would welcome fewer such detours and more time with the people and places he has taken care to make convincing. Start with Coco, preferably with someone willing to talk about its fears afterwards.