You might agree that 'It's Such a Beautiful Day,' or this film might depress the hell out of you

By Isaac Handelman

You may have seen World of Tomorrow, Don Hertzfeldt’s fifteen-minute animated short that was nominated for an Oscar this year. If you haven’t, go ahead and do so -- it’s a wonderful little sci-fi jaunt with a feel-good message -- but I’d like to talk about another of Hertzfeldt’s efforts, an hour-long film entitled It’s Such a Beautiful Day, which resides on Netflix and shares some, though not all, of the generic elements of Hertzfeldt’s shorter effort, such as its black comedy.

Composed of three of the animator’s short films strung together with a bit of extra material included, It’s Such a Beautiful Day is kind of an indescribable viewing experience. It’s about a man named Bill, whose life is narrated in non-linear fashion by the soothing voice of Hertzfeldt himself. Bill, despite his visual simplicity, manages to be more expressive and relatable than many more physically substantial cinematic protagonists. The film is visually eclectic, drawing from the stick-figure style seen in World of Tomorrow (that seems to be Hertzfeldt’s signature) as well as a variety of other visual components, from live-action shots to textured close-ups to flashing lights and colors and more. Calling the style avant-garde might seem fitting if not for the pretentiousness of the label.

And It’s Such a Beautiful Day is many things, but pretentious is not one of them. Despite its highly unconventional structure, it’s incredibly honest, personal, utterly down-to-earth even though its setting stretches out to space on multiple occasions. The film is about coping with life and death and the loss of memories and loved ones, mental illness and love and pain, existentialism and living in the moment and probably a lot of other things. It makes you think, but it also encourages you not to think, to just exist, to stop and smell the flowers, at least some of the time. It’ll probably change the mood of your day significantly; it’s depressing, uplifting, disturbing, and hilarious at different intervals, and yet it somehow manages to be consistently enjoyable. It’s the kind of film that makes written pieces about it sound like lists composed of journeys into thesauruses because to write about it is to miss much of what it is.

The film is so human that I’d imagine almost everyone can find a way to relate to it somehow, and glean something new from it, though what that thing is will likely be different, at least slightly, for most who see it. Whatever it is that you get out of the movie, I’d be willing to bet it’ll have been worth the sixty-two minutes you put into watching. Above all else, It's Such a Beautiful Day certainly lives up to the adjective in its title.