Tuna Tartare (2025)

-Written by Kyle Bain. 

2025 HOLLYSHORTS FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW!

At a karaoke bar located in post-apocalyptic Los Angeles, The titular Tuna Tartare runs that aforementioned bar, one filled with the worst clientele. This short, animated film analyzes the potential future reality of our world–as it takes into account the worst of humanity. 

Tuna Tartare is a messy film that feels like it’s meant to have a specific direction in mind, but is overrun by hulking animation and gratuitous musical numbers. While I, again, believe that Tuna Tartare is meant to analyze our current standing as a society, effectively looking to make a change–the film is far too chaotic for viewers to delve deep enough into this analysis to actually get anything from it. I think there’s more to this film than meets the eye, but there’s often too much going on. 

I ultimately hate every character and what they stand for. I struggled to get past the surface of Tuna Tartare, and found myself criticising the film as a whole. It certainly possesses some level of sophistication (that exists deep beneath the surface), but I became so annoyed with almost everything about this animated short that I found it nearly impossible to focus on the positives. I felt overwhelmed, overstimulated, and almost as if I was being ushered out of the narrative and as far away as possible. 

One of the strangest things I took away from Tuna Tartare is that the titular character feels like Jennifer Coolidge playing the worst [animated] version of herself. She’s loud, arrogant, frustrating, and far too much to handle. With her as the focal point of the film, it makes just about everything else challenging to experience to its intended extent. Nearly every bit of Tuna Tartare distracts from its purpose, leaving it underwhelming and ineffective. 

This satire addresses the most antagonistic and trying aspects of modern humanity. However, with the aforementioned shortcomings of Tuna Tartare, the ability to deeply analyze what certainly had potential withers more and more as the film drives forward. 

The world is run by…Trash; and, for all intents and purposes Tuna Tartare is just that. It’s intended to be an apt representation of the real world, and there is something hidden in the details of this film, but they are overshadowed by nonsense. Rough, but deliberate animation has the ability to catch the eye of certain viewers, but, again, it’s not enough. Tuna Tartare is a mess, a nearly sophisticated mess, but a mess nonetheless. 

Directed by Lena Greene.

4.5/10 = WORTH WATCHING, BUT YOU’VE BEEN WARNED