Toy Story 3

The third film of the series and a farewell. Andy is seventeen and going to university. The toys have been in a chest for years and there are fewer of them. There is a mix-up. The box meant for the attic goes out with the rubbish and from there is donated to a nursery. At first the nursery looks like paradise. Plenty of children, plenty of play, and a bear who welcomes them warmly. Then the arrangement appears. New arrivals are given to the room with the smallest children, where toys get broken, and nobody leaves. From there the film becomes a prison film. Changes of guard, a plan, a tunnel, a bin lorry and an escape. What the narrative is interested in is not toys but being left: all the cruelty in the film comes out of one abandoned toy's grievance, and that character's past is the best section in it. The scene at the incinerator is the darkest moment of the series. There is no escape, no rescue, and the characters take each other's hands. The last scene takes place in a garden and is almost entirely quiet. The production has a history too. During a period of trouble between studios, a third film was to be made by another team; when the two companies merged that script was cancelled and the film was written from scratch. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and was also nominated for Best Picture. Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Ned Beatty and Michael Keaton are among the voices. Lee Unkrich directed. Who it is for: anyone who has watched the series; the film was written for them. Who it is not for: small children; the middle sections are genuinely dark.