The Unreal "Undone"

I've been an animation fan for a very long time, and I've observed that the very, very few Western animated dramas aimed at grown-ups are almost all either "Adult Swim" style genre shows, full of exploitation elements that revel in mature content, or else they're low budget experimental projects. Producing animation has always been expensive, and if it's not for kids, the assumption is that there's only a very limited audience. But as the technology has gotten better, and animators can turn out certain kinds of animation faster and cheaper, it's become more economically feasible for creators to use animation as a storytelling tool for a broader range of stories.

I've seen some precursors to Amazon's "Undone," like the Steven Soderbergh films "Waking Life" and "A Scanner Darkly." All of these were made by filming actors in live action first and then converting the images into stylized animated versions via rotoscoping and digital manipulation. You can still easily distinguish the actors playing the different roles, like Rosa Salazar as Alma, the lead of "Undone," but by converting them into more simplified images of ink lines and blocks of color, it introduces a degree of removal from the real world, allowing the show to implement its fantastical concepts more easily. We don't see the actual characters manipulated much - there are no drug trip psychedelics where people are turning into bugs or growing extra limbs, the way you see in "A Scanner Darkly" - but we do see the environments around the characters being manipulated heavily. Alma can travel back and forth through time, from one location to another, from one reality or state of being to another, seamlessly. The transitions are especially impressive, using animation to avoid hard cuts and introduce elements of dream logic.

"Undone" takes full advantage of this in telling the story of Alma, a commitment-phobic young woman who gets into a car accident and suddenly starts seeing her dead father Jacob (Bob Odenkirk) wherever she goes. From her perspective, she also starts getting trapped in loops of time, unexpectedly jumping around to different points in her life, and learning that she can manipulate space/time. Around her are several characters trying to help Alma get back to normal, including her overbearing mother Camila (Constance Marie), supportive boyfriend Sam (Siddharth Dhananjay), younger sister Becca (Angelique Cabral), and her patient boss Tunde (Daveed Diggs). Alma has a very tough, rebellious personality, and her life is something of a mess. Discovering that she may suddenly have these amazing psychic powers (or be mentally ill) further strains her existing relationships. She also becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth about her father's death in a car accident when Alma was a child.

I appreciate that Alma and her family are kept very grounded and realistic. There's nothing caricatured about any of them, and they're all played totally straight, despite being animated. The story often feels akin to something like "Fleabag" with its focus on Alma's troubled internal life and her struggles with her personal relationships. Rosa Salazar carries the series with her performance, and it makes such a difference that Alma has such a strong voice and presence throughout. There's a specificity to her behavior, heritage, and experiences that help her stay sympathetic and believable amidst all the metaphysical chaos. While all the animated fireworks and flourishes are fun to see, it's Alma teasing her father, or bonding with Becca and Sam that are ultimately what "Undone" is worth watching for.

And that, in the end, is the show's biggest accomplishment as a piece of animated media. It's able to portray the subtle and mundane as well as the otherworldly with equal effectiveness. The animation is executed so well, and feels so suited to the story that it never feels like a gimmick, the way something like "Loving Vincent" does. I occasionally forgot that I was watching an animated series, even when the characters were hurtling through space or freezing time. I'm sure that you could have made "Undone" as a live action program, but the animation works so well here and helps make the series truly distinctive without sacrificing the intimacy of its performances or the impact of its story.

I hope "Undone" does well enough that we see more projects like it - personal, unconventional, and telling stories that we don't expect to see animated. And after this and "Battle Angel Alita," I wouldn't mind if I never learn what Rosa Salazar actually looks like in real life.

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