Psycho's Movie Reviews #235: Wallace & Gromit: A Matter Of Loaf And Death (2008)

A Matter of Loaf and Death is a 2008 British stop-motion animated short film produced by Aardman Animations, created by Nick Park, and is the fourth short to star his characters Wallace and Gromit, the first one since A Close Shave in 1995.

A Matter of Loaf and Death is a murder mystery, with Wallace and Gromit starting a new bakery business. With an unknown assailant murdering bakers, Gromit tries to solve the case before Wallace ends up a victim himself. It was the last Wallace and Gromit film before the retirement of Wallace's voice actor Peter Sallis in 2010. The short was also one of most watched television specials in the United Kingdom in 2008, and received critical acclaim. It received an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short Film at the 82nd Academy Awards and won a BAFTA and an Annie Award for Best Short Animation and Best Animated Short Subject respectively in 2009.

Plot

A serial killer has murdered twelve bakers. While on a delivery for their bakery business, Wallace and Gromit save Piella Bakewell, a former pin-up girl for the Bake-O-Lite bread company, and her nervous poodle Fluffles when the brakes on her bicycle fail. Gromit finds there is no problem with the brakes, but Wallace is smitten. He and Piella begin a whirlwind romance, and Gromit is angered when she redecorates their house. Fluffles and Gromit share a sensitive moment when she returns Gromit's possessions, discarded by Piella.

Wallace sends Gromit to return Piella's forgotten purse. At Piella's mansion, Gromit discovers numbered mannequins representing each of the murdered bakers, and a book of photos; Wallace is her planned thirteenth victim, completing a baker's dozen. When he shows Wallace the evidence, Wallace is too distracted with his engagement to Piella to listen.

Gromit installs security measures in their home, including a metal-detecting security screener. After Piella tricks Wallace into thinking that Gromit bit her (she bit her own arm), Wallace muzzles Gromit and chains him up. Gromit watches helplessly as Piella prepares to push Wallace to his death, but he is saved when Piella is struck by a bag of flour. After an angry outburst about bakers, she leaves but drops by the next day to apologize with a cake. Gromit, suspicious, follows her home, where Piella throws him into a storeroom with Fluffles.

Escaping in Piella's old Bake-O-Lite hot air balloon, Gromit and Fluffles arrive at Wallace's house as he lights the candle. After a struggle, the cake falls, revealing a bomb. Wallace and Gromit are attacked by Piella, who reveals she detests bakers after her weight gain ended her career as the Bake-O-Lite girl. She is about to kill Wallace, but is attacked by Fluffles in a forklift. In the chaos, the bomb ends up in Wallace's trousers; Gromit and Fluffles neutralize the explosion by filling the trousers with dough while Piella leaps onto her balloon and escapes. However, her weight drags the balloon into a crocodile enclosure in the zoo where she is devoured.

Dejected, Wallace and Gromit decide to take their mind off things with a delivery. Outside, they find Fluffles and she joins them.

Production

In October 2007, it was announced that Wallace and Gromit were to return to television after an absence of ten years. Filming began in January 2008; creator Nick Park commented that the production period for the short was significantly quicker than that of the feature length films Chicken Run and The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which each took five years to complete. A Matter of Loaf and Death was the first Aardman film to be made using the software Stop-Motion Pro. Five models were created for Gromit alone, with scenes being shot simultaneously on thirteen sets.

Commenting on the fact that the short would be made directly for a British audience, Nick Park said: "I don't feel like I'm making a film for a kid in some suburb of America — and being told they're not going to understand a joke, or a northern saying." Regardless, Park changed the title from Trouble at Mill as he thought it was too obscure a Northern England colloquialism. As well as a final title that references A Matter of Life and Death, the film also references Batman, Aliens and Ghost.

Park said in an interview with the Radio Times, "The BBC hardly gave a single note or instruction on the whole thing", and Park goes on to remark how it was better than his previous work with DreamWorks, Curse of the Were-Rabbit, where they kept on receiving calls to change critical things.

Park cast Sally Lindsay after hearing her on the Radcliffe and Maconie Show on BBC Radio 2 whilst driving from Preston. Although unfamiliar with her role as Shelly Unwin in Coronation Street, Park said "Sally has a lot of fun in her voice, flamboyant almost, and I was also looking for someone who could be quite charming too, but with a slightly posh northern accent. Piella needed to at times sound well to do, and then at others sound quite gritty".

Release/Reception/Box Office

The short had its world premiere in Australia, on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's ABC1 on 3 December 2008, and was repeated again the following day on ABC2.

In the United Kingdom, it aired on Christmas Day at 20:30 on BBC One, although it had been readily available on The Pirate Bay since 3 December 2008. On 19 December 2008, Aardman Animations revealed they had "no idea" of how clips were leaked onto YouTube, ahead of its screening in the United Kingdom.

In France, A Matter of Loaf and Death (Sacré pétrin in French) was shown – dubbed into French – on Christmas Eve 2008, on M6. In Germany, one version, entitled Auf Leben und Brot was broadcast on the Super RTL network, the title is a play on Auf Leben und Tod meaning a matter of life and death.

In a similar style to A Close Shave, Wallace and Gromit became the theme for BBC One's Christmas presentation for 2008, to promote the showing of A Matter of Loaf and Death.

The programme was watched by the most viewers of any programme on Christmas Day, 2008 in the United Kingdom, and secured the largest Christmas Day audience in five years. It was also the most watched programme in the United Kingdom in 2008, with a peak average audience of 14.4 million. The programme had a share of 53.3%, peaking with 58.1% and 15.88 million at the end of the programme.

The repeat showing on New Year's Day even managed 7.2 million, beating ITV's Emmerdale in the ratings. The short was shown on British Television for the third time on Good Friday pulling in 3.4 million viewers. In BARB's official ratings published on 8 January 2009, it showed that A Matter of Loaf and Death had 16.15 million, making it the highest rated programme of 2008, and the highest rated non sporting event in the United Kingdom since 2004, when an episode of Coronation Street garnered 16.3 million.

A positive review came from USA Today, which gave the film four stars.

Budget £100,000

Box Office $3,679,580

My Review

This latest Wallace and Gromit short is sure different in some ways from the first short, A Grand Day Out. The first film used simpler technology--mostly because Nick Park had been working on much of the film on his own before he came to work for Aardman. The characters were clearly made of clay (with fingerprints on them) and the sets were much simpler. In contrast, in A Matter Of Loaf And Death, the characters look like they were computer generated (I don't think this is true, however) because they were much smoother and they appeared to be using soft poseable plastic dolls. Also, the backgrounds and additional characters are light-years ahead of the first film. All this is to be expected, as the company has grown and learned a lot over the years--as well as picking up several Oscars along the way for their great work.

Now this isn't saying that the new film is total perfection. While it is very cute and watchable, it does suffer from two things. Perhaps the earlier films were a bit funnier. In fact, I saw a couple of these older shorts again just a few days ago and I think the humour was a bit brighter and sillier. Another minor problem is that this film reminded me an awful lot of A Close Shave. Both films featured Wallace falling in love and in both cases, the ladies ended up being very wicked, indeed! In fact, when I first started watching A Matter Of Loaf Death, I automatically assumed that lady was the killer--just like the lady in this previous film was the sheep-napper. And, like in the other film, it's up to Gromit to save the day because Wallace is too big a doofus to realize what is happening...which, by the way, reminds me a lot of The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit.

So, as you can see, there isn't much new under the sun in this film. However, its handled so well and beautifully that you can still enjoy this rather derivative yet engaging film.

I do agree with the other commentators that it isn't quite as good as Wrong Trousers or Close Shave, but there is still plenty to enjoy here. I can see completely why it was the most watched Christmas programme on British Television. Technically, it is a wonder. Even after thirteen years, the claymation is so good. And there are plenty of visual jokes to delight even the fussiest adult or child, like 'Puppy Love by Doggy Osmond'. I just have to mention the ending, it was hilarious, with Wallace shouting "Gromit I've got a bomb in my pants". It was so silly I couldn't help laughing, so much so my sides were really sore. Sally Lindsey was impressive as Piella Bakewell, and Peter Sallis still proves that at 87 he could still do a competent job as ever as Wallace. Gromit still delights with his priceless facial expressions, and the little dog was enough to make you go "awww!" The storyline was quite dark in tone, even more so than the predecessors, but the constant visual jokes kept my family entertained. If I had one quibble, it would be that the pace of the episode was a bit too fast, but overall this was hugely enjoyable. 9/10

{And with this being the final Wallace & Gromit review - unless rumours of their being another film coming out in 2023 (which I hope comes true; don't get me wrong I love all the one offs Aardman has done but it's been waaaaaay too long since Wallace & Gromit have been on the big screen) - I feel like we should go out with a BANG (no pun intended). So here's the most iconic theme throughout all of British Cinema}