At Home with Mrs. Hen

Poor Mrs. Hen. She toils all day at home, cleaning up after her mess-creating, troublemaking, lay-about, video-game playing eldest son (who turns up his beak at every dish she cooks), while also struggling to care for her younger chick in filmmaker Tali's wordless, simply animated National Film Board of Canada short. When a fed-up Mrs. Hen slips away to go sit in a nearby tree, the terrible tyke is left alone to fend for and feed himself (as well as care for his brother), and he soon drops the finicky attitude (he has no idea how to operate the can opener and therefore cannot eat). Mrs. Hen eventually returns, with a new baby chick in tow, to find that her older son is now a changed young bird with a newfound appreciation for his mother. Of course, the baby is tossing food on the floor, but that's another lesson to be learned later down the road. As the tagline accurately states: “You don't need to be a chicken to relate.” A cute parable about the consequences of being self-centered and ignoring others, At Home with Mrs. Hen is recommended. Aud: K, E, P. (R. Pitman)