Metacritic reviews

Ultimately, it’s an aspirational and inspirational tale of daring to reach for the stars even when authority figures tell you they don’t exist – and the value of having a friend who believes in you, even if they have an umbrella handle for a nose.

Poupelle of Chimney Town manages to do something most people would tell you is impossible: Feel empathy for a pile of smelly trash. It’s a fitting feat for a film that encourages you to keep believing in your dreams even if everyone else belittles them or tells you you’re wrong.

As rich as the visuals can be at times, the music has it beat: Chimney Town may be a small-minded, smoke-choked industrial prison state for most, but to an optimistic loner like Lubicchi, it sounds like a symphony and glitters with possibility.

Trying to get a read on the film — while admiring its palette and off-kilter character details (Lubicchi has an odd vampire overbite) — keeps “Poupelle” fun for a while. But the film ultimately shies away from its most disturbing ideas, falling back on a comforting sentimentality.