Review: Tied Up is a trashy tale that I didn't treasure

You know how Pixar are kind of the kings of personifying various objects, animals, and concepts, and making us fall in love with them? In their movies, we've experienced the inner lives of toys, bugs, fish, monsters, and even emotions. But, they've never gone to the extreme of making us care about trash. Well, unless you count Sid's toys in the original Toy Story, maybe.

But that's the gist of Tied Up, a Russian animated feature that recently got a digital release here in the states. The title refers to the main character, Mak, a designed necktie who, in a show of bravado by his owner, is tossed from the car window. He lands in an alley full of garbage of various shapes and sizes, but he is quick to tell them he doesn't belong there. They're all busted, broken, used-up, and otherwise worthy of the dumpster. But Mac, he's expensive, silk, not like them. He needs to get home.

The rest of the trash dreams of reaching Paradise, a mythical place where garbage is sorted by a Decider of Destiny, where they can make wishes and find a new lease on life. Hilariously, this belief comes from the shouted prophecies of a plastic bag from an esoteric book store who occasionally blows by on the wind. 

Mak's journey to find his owner ends up overlapping with some of the other garbage to reach Paradise, and they form a motley crew. There's a old flip phone, a discarded can of air freshener, a threadbare spool of thread, a cracked vase, and a tough boot with a wad of gum stuck to his sole. While Mak is very clearly a jerk, he also proves to often be a decent guy, doing what he can to help the other objects, often risking his personal safety in the process.

The character designs are the highlight here. The animation itself isn't anything to write home about, but it's certainly not an eyesore. But the characters are fantastic to look at, with a lot of really creative designs to give them faces, bodies, personalities. I love the mattress with busted springs poking out, giving him eyes. Some objects have logos that move, like a pizza box or a fashion magazine. There are bikes and dolls and electronics, cigarette butts and batteries. Any scene where trash is assembled, there's a lot to take in, and it's a lot of fun. There's even a nod to Pixar (since this movie feels obviously inspired by Toy Story), with a discarded desk lamp and ball paired together.

At under 90 minutes long, Tied Up still feels like it overstays its welcome. There just isn't much going on here, no stirring themes or particularly exciting character arcs. The story is one of those that just feels like "and then, and then, and then." The characters are in the sewer, and then in the forest, and then in the fields. That kind of deal where you kind of feel the hand of the filmmakers struggling to push things along.

And that would likely be more okay if the film was funnier. There are cute jokes and bits of physical comedy here and there, but more often than not, it feels like Tied Up always goes for the obvious punchline. A movie about personified trash has so much possibility for inventive comedy and weird situations, and while we get some of that here and there, I mostly found myself a bit bored.

It doesn't help that this is coming out shortly after Ordures, a similar movie about a discarded cup that is wildly hilarious and genuinely surprising. The two films have very different goals, and different target audiences, but when you've seen a take on an idea done so perfectly, it's a bit harder to forgive the lesser version. (I just went back to my Ordures review, and I started that one off talking about Pixar's track record too...that's how similar the territory tread here is, I guess. Or I'm just predictable and lame. Both are possible.)

We've all heard the saying that one man's trash is another man's treasure. But in the case of Tied Up, I think the trash is mostly just trash.