Movie review
June 22, 2017 · 95 min · PG-13
Woke Score
Lower is better
Breakdown
These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for Loving Vincent.
Woke representation / casting
The cast uses white European actors to portray real 19th-century French and Dutch people from Van Gogh’s paintings and letters, with no visible identity signaling, quota casting, or story mismatches.
Woke political dialogue
All dialogue stays in the 1890s world of art, family, mental health, and local gossip about the painter’s death; no modern activist lines or lectures.
Identity-driven story themes
Themes stay on creativity’s cost, mental illness, loyalty, and historical truth-seeking; nothing centers race, gender identity, sexuality, or systemic oppression.
Western institutional / cultural critique
The film shows 19th-century rural life and personal struggles without reframing them as critiques of patriarchy, capitalism, whiteness, or Western traditions.
Review
Loving Vincent is a 2017 animated drama that tells the story of a young man sent to deliver Vincent van Gogh’s final letter to his brother one year after the painter’s death in 1890. He investigates the troubled artist’s last days in rural France through conversations with people Van Gogh painted. The film uses a groundbreaking technique of over 65,000 hand-painted oil frames in Van Gogh’s swirling style to explore art, mental illness, family bonds, creativity, and the mystery around his death. No modern identity politics, activist messaging, or social-justice themes appear in the story, dialogue, casting, or marketing.
Woke character or canon changes
Not relevant. The story uses documented history and Van Gogh’s own paintings and letters with no identity-driven swaps or reinterpretations.
Anti-woke backlash and complaints
No right-leaning or anti-woke complaints exist; the film drew no accusations of pushing DEI or identity politics.
Creator track record context
The Welchmans have built careers on pure artistic and technical innovation with classic subjects. Co-writer Jacek Dehnel has spoken publicly as an openly gay man advocating LGBT rights and criticizing conservative Polish policies, but this personal stance does not appear in the film’s content or themes.
Production
