Who Framed Roger Rabbit. 1988. USA. Directed by Robert Zemeckis. 104 min.
Screenplay by Jeffrey Price, Peter S. Seaman, from the novel by Gary K. Wolf. With Bob Hoskins, Christopher Lloyd, Charles Fleischer. The darker themes beneath the bright surfaces of Zemeckis’s films broke through with this multiplex masterpiece, set in an alternate Hollywood of the late 1940s where cartoon characters are the designated Other, confined to a ghetto and subjected to attempted genocides—when they aren’t being paraded around for the amusement of the oppressive human majority. Bob Hoskins is the private detective who crosses the line when he befriends the title character (memorably animated by Richard Williams and voiced by Charles Fleischer), an insecure animated star concerned that his cantilevered wife (with the voice of Kathleen Turner) is having an affair.