Some works of art percolate a layer of your subconscious where logic fails to get an entry pass. Tom and Jerry: The Movie (1992) is one such work of art. The film, despite its unsuccessful Box Office run, terrible critical acclaim, a 14% Rotten Tomato score, and Reddit threads tearing apart the film’s artistic choices, has managed to stay unflinched by it all, standing tall on the only parameter that can’t be shaken-I love it.

It’s one of those few films I watched on repeat as a ten-year-old, devouring the fascinating imagery created by Phil Roman, and letting Henry Mancini’s iconic score take hold of my soul, and make it soar. Every time I seemed it fit, I’d plug the CD inside the player and set myself up for a great time. Little did I know, that from among a hoard of content accumulated over the decades, this little film would keep gnawing at my subconscious like no other, as though it were a constant companion, waiting to be rediscovered all over again.

It would send me little signals from time to time, shooting tunes that laid buried deep inside to surface. There’s be mornings when the tune of “Friends to the End” would worm its way out while I poured myself a cup of tea. At other times, for no particular reason whatsoever, I’d feel the cabin burning scene so vividly, it felt Time was playing a trick on me. And just for a moment, I’d be in that little girl’s body who would get terrfied by Aunt Figg’s menacing facial expressions, feel Robyn’s pain as her own, and was in fits of laughter every time she’d watch the overweight dachshund, Ferdinand squeal from under the pool chair, Aunt Figg crushing him under her enormous weight. I don’t know if my love for chocolate eclairs can be credited to this film, but I highly suspect watching Figg lick the chocolate cream off her fingers the way she did had to count for something.

Latelt, I could feel a silent force dragging me towards this film, like a child tugging at his mother’s skirt when he wants to show her something fun. Why was I suddenly feeling the urge to rewatch a movie I’d seen almost 25 years ago? Why were so many people rewatching this film again, and expressing how much it means to them that someone took the effort to share the songs from this film on YouTube? Why did so many people even care about this unsuccessful animated film that had the audacity to give its titular characters voice, knowing fully well the criticism they’d invite?

On rewatching the film a few days back, I understood the why. After what seemed like an era, I met someone I’d known really well back in the day. It was like watching a film with a version of me I’d thought was lost forever. Watching Tom’s sad cushion erupt with a spring as he lays down on the floor, having been left behind by his family transported me to a place where the spring’s metallic sound reached me fully. The clouds of dust after the stone chimney crumbles from the bulldozer held my gaze, reminding me of someone who really could taste these fluffy clouds somehow. The scene where Tom is pattering his wet feet on the sidewalk, in tune with the gloomy tune felt as though I’d walked the street with him. Like a person who gains his memory in a flash, obliterating the time when he didn’t remember anything, the small tiny details of the film filled the gaps I had over the years learned to live with.

Robyn’s thick teardrop falling on her drawings as she sings the hauntingly melancholic number “I Miss You,” the softness of the blankets she ties together to get away, her sea green backpack’s curved edges, Ferdinand bobbing inside the green jelly during the food fight sequence, the headlight going off at the end of’ “Friends to the End”, and the dollar sign transforming into Lickboot and Aunt Figg’s outline during “Money is such a Beautiful Word” are just a few of the many scenes that held something signifant inside them. They held a part of me that lived perpetually in beauty and saw it clearly. She wasn’t smart enough to argue why she liked a film, or logical enough to criticise it and offer a different approach instead. She wasn’t old enough to navigate the ill-waters of society that would make a “smart” and “logical” person out of her. She just was. Just like this film is just what it is. No questions existed, and everyone seemed to know the right thing.

Phil Roman’s astute and firm hand as an animation director, Henry Mancini’s soaring melodies, turning menacing ever so slightly to stay in the realm of fantasy, without diluting the villains, Leslie Bricusse’s diabolical lyrics “Money is power. If it were food, it’s a dish I’d devour, every hour,” the clear flow of narrative, like a stream that knows where to flow, Charlotte Rae’s iconic quaver when she says, “No more moneyyyyy”, and Tony Jay’s (Lickboot) iconic baritone that sent shivers down my spine as a child are all pieces of a work that simply knew what it was doing, without any external noise to throw it off its designed course. It’s this conviction that reached out to the little girl who also valued true beauty, one that needed no styling. One that didn’t need effort or external validation. One that was content in having fulfilled an internal calling of making this film the way it was meant to be made, irrespective of any consequences.

And that’s why I’ll always love this rotten film, no matter what.