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One night shortly before the Oscars ceremony, my boyfriend decided to catch up on \u201cFlow<\/a>,\u201d the animated film from Latvia that would go on to win best animated feature. When I returned home from dinner, I found that the film had also captured the attention of another viewer \u2014 my dog Daisy, a corgi mix.<\/p>\n Search on TikTok and you\u2019ll find a number of videos of dogs and cats alike viewing \u201cFlow\u201d alongside their owners, appearing to recognize themselves in the gentle saga, which tells the tale of an adorable black kitty who must work with a motley crew of other industrious animals to survive rising sea levels in a surreal landscape. The trend is a particularly cute coda to what was already one of the feel-good stories of awards season in which the dialogue-free indie \u2014 made on open-source software and directed by Gints Zilbalodis \u2014 triumphed over studio fare like \u201cInside Out 2\u201d and \u201cThe Wild Robot,\u201d to earn Latvia its first ever Oscar.<\/p>\n Watching \u201cFlow\u201d in the theater is a wonderfully immersive experience where the spectacle of the movie\u2019s visuals are on full display. On a big screen, you can lose yourself in the animation, noticing the way the water ripples, succumbing to the beauty and terror of the universe this little kitty is trying to navigate. Watching \u201cFlow\u201d at home (it is streaming on Max) with an animal is an equally delightful experience, but a different one. You may find your attention pulled in two directions as you try to contemplate what this all means to your pet as well as what it means to you.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n I, for one, tried to decipher just what was going on with Daisy. Surely, she wasn\u2019t understanding the climate change allegory, but her huge ears stood up straight as she gazed upon the heroic cat, and I caught her running up to the TV for a sequence in which it and its capybara ally go tumbling off their boat. Seeing \u2014 or perhaps just hearing \u2014 the characters in peril stressed her out on some level.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Matiss Kaza, who produced and co-wrote the film, said in an email that he suspects that it\u2019s the real animal sounds used in production that attract the attention of our domesticated friends. \u201cWe don\u2019t commonly think of pets as a potential target audience when making films, but we are glad that \u2018Flow\u2019 has proved to be a special bonding experience between viewers and their dogs and cats.\u201d<\/p>\n When I spoke to social media users who posted clips of their household beasts responding to \u201cFlow,\u201d they explained that their animals aren\u2019t usually this entranced by the screen.<\/p>\n Chayse Orion, 24, had seen other TikTok posts about the film before he decided to watch it. He thought it was cute but wasn\u2019t paying super close attention. His cat Fishbone was<\/a>. \u201cFishbone was so engrossed in the movie,\u201d Orion said. \u201cHe was just so into it, which was really weird because I\u2019ve never seen him interact with a show like that. He\u2019s never really been interested in the TV at all.\u201d<\/p>\n Orion knew it would make great internet content. Not only did he start to film Fishbone, he moved the cat\u2019s tower closer to the TV for a better view, one that put Fishbone at eye level with his animated brethren. \u201cI actually put it on again yesterday for him to watch while I was working,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely his favorite movie now, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n