By Roman Neeson, Arts Muse Magazine

John Kelly’s Retirement Plan, a delicately surreal and emotionally resonant animated short voiced with wry vulnerability by Domhnall Gleeson, feels like the rare film that captures something universally human yet rarely articulated: the startling, vertiginous moment when we pause long enough to notice the passage of our own lives.

What distinguishes Retirement Plan, and why it deserves the Oscar for Best Animated Short, is not merely its exquisite craftsmanship or festival-circuit momentum. It is the film’s quiet profundity, its ability to transform a deeply personal moment of panic into a collective meditation on time, desire, and mortality.

A Meditation on the Lives We Haven’t Lived

In Gleeson’s performance as Ray, a midlife everyman overstimulated and energy-starved, Kelly finds the perfect vessel through which to explore the fantasies we project onto our imagined futures. Ray’s daydreams are hopeful, absurd, tender, and fear-tinged in equal measure, each a flicker of the curiosity we believe will blossom once we finally “have time.” The short becomes a stream-of-consciousness tapestry that is both humorous and haunting, revealing how retirement fantasies are often less about leisure and more about longing.Kelly’s design and animation style underscores this psychological ebb and flow: fluid, expressive, and tinged with whimsy, yet never untethered from the emotional weight beneath. This balancing act, between tragedy and absurdity, is one Kelly has refined throughout his career, and here it crystallizes with startling clarity.

A Standout in the Festival Landscape

That Retirement Plan has already become a festival favorite is no surprise. Since its world premiere at the Galway Film Festival, it has swept major awards: the Grand Jury Award and Audience Award at SXSW’s Animated Short Competition, Best Animated Short at the Bali International Film Festival, and the Best of the Festival Award at Palm Springs International ShortFest. These accolades speak not only to the film’s artistic excellence but to its deep emotional accessibility; audiences recognize themselves in Ray’s restless yearning.Its Oscar qualification for 2026 feels less like a milestone and more like an inevitability.

A Creative Team in Perfect Harmony

Behind the film is an inspired creative constellation. Kelly, who co-wrote the script with New York–based writer Tara Lawall, grounds the narrative in something bravely personal, a panic attack, but renders it with lightness and generosity. Producer Andrew Freedman (Venom Films, Antidote Films) brings his seasoned eye for distinctive storytelling, while producer Julie Murnaghan draws from years spent working with world-class animation talent. The result is a short film with the emotional potency of a feature and the precision of a poem.Gleeson’s voice performance is the final indispensable ingredient: understated, warm, and rhythmically alive to the film’s tonal oscillations. His Ray is both funny and fragile, a man trying to outrun his own sense of finitude.

A Universal Mirror, Beautifully Polished

What makes Retirement Plan feel Oscar-destined is its universal resonance. Everyone, at some point, confronts the unsettling awareness that the life they are living may not be the one they imagined. Kelly’s film doesn’t moralize or depress; instead, it invites reflection. It asks us to observe the gentle distance between our aspirations and our lived reality, and to do so with humor, compassion, and a renewed appreciation for the time we do have.In a year of impressive animated shorts, Retirement Plan distinguishes itself by the depth of its emotional intelligence, the elegance of its artistry, and the generosity of its storytelling. It is a film that lingers, not because of spectacle, but because of truth.If the purpose of the Best Animated Short Oscar is to honor work that expands the expressive possibilities of animation while speaking meaningfully to the human condition, then Retirement Plan is not just a contender. It is the clearest, most compelling choice.