Ok, where do I even begin with this one?!
Sausage Party (I had to be very careful googling that to get the movie poster) is an animated adventure film, set in a supermarket, that deals with one sausage’s realisation that the promised land beyond the doors is in fact one great big lie. It’s also a film filled to the brim with swearing, sexual references and some very off-colour political humour.
As is now pretty much expected from animation, it all looks very slick and polished. The humour… the humour is twisted, and crude, and there’s a good chance it will offend at some stage – but behind all that lies a film I would best describe as ‘subversive’.
I’m not actually sure that’s the right word, but I can’t think of a better one right now. Sausage Party puts ideas of faith and truth under a microscope, as the characters – who have had unwavering faith in ‘The Great Beyond’ (paradise), come to suspect this might be one big lie. Confronted with evidence, some characters take it upon themselves to shove what they consider to be the new truth down everyone else’s throats – others rebuke the idea, preferring to believe in the Great Beyond, for that is easier. You can probably guess what they’re actually referring to.
There is subtlety here. It’s woven into the threads of a film that made waves for being brash and rude (which it is, it very much is!), but there is also cleverness.
I honestly don’t know if this is a film that can be easily enjoyed. If bad language offends you, don’t watch it, for it’s extremely heavy on the swears. In fact, my chief complaint is that there is an overload of swearing. I’m no prude (read my Greatest Ludus story, which is gradually going up on the site, and you’ll see that), but there were points where even I felt the swearing was getting out of hand. If sexual references offend you, don’t watch this movie. There’s a lot of that too (and the finale of the film goes nuts with this). If you don’t like close-to-the-mark political statements – well, there are a few of these as well.
Despite all that, I have to say that I actually enjoyed this film. It isn’t something I’d necessarily go out of my way to watch again, but I wouldn’t switch it off if it were on TV.
7/10
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