The Illusionist, a self-indulgent puff of whimsy based on an original script by Jacques Tati, is a parable featuring an old stage magician superseded by more exciting modern acts. The magician visits a remote Scottish Island where he meets a girl who believes his magic is real; she follows him to a rented Edinburgh apartment where, desperate not to shatter childhood innocence – and so his own place in her affections – he near-bankrupts himself conjuring gifts seemingly out of thin air.

So wrapped up are the animators, headed by director Sylvain Chomet (Belleville Rendezvous), in rendering the shifting Scottish light or rolling sea mist that they seem oblivious to the deep oddness of this central relationship, and to the odious creatures they’ve created in the pathetic magician and giftaholic girl. It’s all meant symbolically, of course, and, steeped in Tati references, is really about aging versus the magic of youth. But all this just re-emphasizes the question: apart from the animators themselves, who is this film for?

And, my, but it’s slow, elegaic even, the beautiful 2D animation a dying art form’s lament for a dying art form. There’s no speech, the whole thing is told via the gentlest of physical comedy, and the only character that doesn’t succumb to the general stupor is a vicious rabbit-in-a-hat. In short, the film equivalent of a nice cup of warm milk before bedtime.