‘A Magnificent Life’ review: Sylvain Chomet animates the life of Marcel Pagnol

Dir/scr: Sylvain Chomet. France/Luxembourg/Belgium 2025. 90mins

The playwright, author and film-maker Marcel Pagnol (1895-1974) clearly did have A Magnificent Life – but you imagine it must have been somewhat thornier and more complex than the sugar-glazed account depicted in the latest from acclaimed French animation specialist Sylvain Chomet (Triplets Of Belleville). His first animated feature since 2010’s The Illusionist, and first feature since 2013’s live action Attila Marcel, A Magnificent Life offers a fond, unashamedly soft-hearted portrait of an undeniably important figure in 20th-century French culture.

A gorgeous, decidedly dewy-eyed heritage hagiography

Despite his legacy in much-loved latter-day adaptations such as Jean de Florette, Pagnol is not a name that has much currency with younger generations, nor outside France – and in the age of digital animation, this lovingly crafted but visually conservative piece could seem dated dated. Older viewers might take it to their hearts, and its highly specific cultural references will mean it is of greatest appeal to dedicated Francophiles. 

French title Marcel Et Monsieur Pagnol highlights a narrative that doubles between the adult writer and his boyhood self. The film begins with the elderly Pagnol (voiced by Laurent Lafitte), his theatrical success declining, wearily contemplating writing a memoir – which he does with the help of his childhood self, one of many friendly visions that haunt him through the film, which notably also includes his ever-loving late mother Augustine (Géraldine Pailhas).

The film covers Pagnol’s days as a struggling English teacher newly arrived in Paris with his wife, who eventually leaves, convinced that he’s wasting his time trying to be a playwright. Success eventually comes with his 1927 play Topaze, about a schoolmaster and inspired by Pagnol’s father. As talkies come to replace silent movies, Pagnol goes on to explore cinema, eventually directing his own much-loved features like Regain (Harvest), Le Shpountz and The Well-Digger’s Daughter. These films celebrate the culture, language and accent of Pagnol’s native Marseilles, where he creates his own independent studio. 

A Magnificent Life also briskly covers Pagnol’s wartime career – he defiantly refuses to cede to Germany’s insistence that he cooperate with its film industry – and his amorous relationships with three actresses who starred in his work, Orane Demazis, Josette Day and Jacqueline Bouvier (whom he later married). Bizarrely, assorted comedy animals appear throughout – a bird which spurs on his writing efforts by squawking, “Pagnol! Pagnol!”, a large slobbering dog, an omnivorous sheep that becomes his studio mascot.

As this might suggest, A Magnificent Life contains an offputting quota of cuteness along with the nostalgia, and much goofiness besides. Some of the supporting voice characterisations are so exaggerated that they barely meet a Hanna-Barbera level of sophistication.

The animation is as elegant as you would expect from this director, the figures crisply delineated in clean black lines (the famous ligne claire of French comic books, a field in which Chomet is also distinguished). The characters move and emote elegantly, and the period detail is as meticulous and as densely evocative as in his other features, with treated clips from Pagnol’s films vividly illustrating his screen career. The textures are similarly rich, from the grungy autumn tones of an inhospitable 1920s Paris to the balmy Mediterranean sun accompanied by the sound of cicadas (the insect was the emblem for Pagnol’s studio). But the tone doesn’t escape a certain degree of whimsy, even kitsch, as when Augustine is seen floating in a swirl of flowers that then turn into her funeral wreath.  

The film – billed upfront as a true story, and made with the input of its subject’s grandson and archivist-biographer Nicolas Pagnol – gives a broad, highly informative account of a revered life and career. Whether it really opens up Pagnol’s oeuvre, or makes you want to discover his work is another question: rather, it feels like a gorgeous, decidedly dewy-eyed heritage hagiography.