Parents' Guide to Lesbian Space Princess

This mature animated comedy isn't for everyone, but those who appreciate animation of a transgressive nature will enjoy it. In space, no one can hear you scream, but in this send-up of space operas, everyone should be able to hear you laugh. Lesbian Space Princess fires jokes fast enough that a few get lost under the ones still landing, and it's relentlessly smart and funny, willing to send up the things people call woke and the things that actually cause damage, without pretending some tidy compromise exists between them. The directors, Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese, build a galaxy worth pausing over, literally, because they populate their world with details that deserve to be examined. One bathroom scene fills its walls with graffiti worth stopping to read. The animation is beautiful, closest in spirit to a raunchier Adventure Time, and the set pieces are truly ingenious.

The sex jokes include topics that most movies never attempt. The film insists that talking about vulvas and periods and what women actually want is permitted, and it manages this without the airless Goop-like solemnity that usually attaches to the subject. Underneath all the controversial jokes sits a story about everyone having someone, which the film then complicates by refusing to suggest anyone needs a partner to be whole. Princess Saira becomes the heroine of her own rescue and stops waiting for help, so the arc turns into a girl falling in love with her own power. Richard Roxburgh steals the picture as the Ship, a sexist who learns, played with droll timing that pays off every line. The whole cast clicks. It deservedly won the Teddy at Berlin and at 87 minutes it's built to be watched again and again.