Among residents of the city, The Cat (François Morel) is a familiar fixture on the shoulder of The Rabbi (Maurice Bénichou). The Cat actually belongs to The Rabbi's daughter, Zlabya (Karina Testa), but he spends most of his time with the Rabbi on his many journeys. The Cat reveals it can speak, which impresses Zlabya, but The Rabbi quickly becomes suspicious that the cat is reading things to his daughter he doesn't approve of. The Cat then turns his attention to helping The Rabbi pass an important language test, but his voice disappears when The Rabbi refuses to cheat on the test. Later, The Cat discovers that he can understand and communicate with a young Russian painter (Sava Lolov), who shows up unexpectedly in a box full of books. The Rabbi, his cousin Mohammed Sfar (Fellag Sheik), and a rich drunk named Vastenov (Wojciech Pszoniak) set off to find the holy land of Jerusalem together, encountering all sorts of resistance along the way.

It may be obvious from the shambling summary above, but The Rabbi's Cat is less of a story than a series of scenes with the same characters. The Cat, The Rabbi, and Zlabya don't have much in the way of story arcs; this is a slice-of-life movie in the strictest sense. Still, we get plenty of their characters. When The Cat becomes obsessed with having a Bar Mitzvah and The Rabbi tries to teach him some Jewish history, The Cat counters all of The Rabbi's stories with science. Zlabya's freedom is infringed upon by religious beliefs and gender politics at the time, and there's a sense that she's beginning to push back. In one of the movie's warmer and more interesting threads, The Painter falls in love with an African bartender (Marguerite Abouet), and despite their entire courtship taking less than five minutes of the movie, their connection feels surprisingly real.

These characters are supported by the film's incredible visuals, which bring Algeria in the 1930s to vivid life. The directors spent several weeks with their cast in costume, watching them as they acted out the film in a rehearsal room with some select props. Later, details of the performances were used in the animation of the movie, creating a film with an incredible sense of reality in the small, quiet moments. Each new world is colorful and detailed, with an intoxicating hand-drawn look that feels refreshing in a world dominated by perfect computer animation. There are also at least one or two crackerjack sequences where the Style changes dramatically, including a hilarious and exciting sequence near the end of the movie involving The Cat, The Painter, and The Waitress. There's also a particularly cutting jab at another comic recently turned into a movie, in the form of another adventurer out in the desert.

Although the film is being released by a label called "GKids," the film is thick with discussion of the political and religious relationships between people of other cultures and faiths (which I have to admit, frequently went over my head), and there is some surprising violence in the film. Yet even when the graphic novel structure of the original material and other shortcomings threaten to derail the picture, the engaging and funny characterizations and dazzling visuals were more than enough to bring me back. The Rabbi's Cat might've been better suited to life as a series of shorts, even a miniseries, but as a movie, it's an entertaining journey that embodies its protagonist by slinking around its deficiencies with a wry charm.