Title Screen
Granpa
is a British short family-oriented film directed by Dianne Jackson (who's known for directing the The Snowman by Raymond Briggs) based on a picture book of the same name by John Burningham that details the relationship of Emily and her ailing grandfather (voiced by Peter Ustinov). Granpa, knowing he doesn't have long, takes the time he does have to spend with his granddaughter to share his memories of adventures and days gone by.Tropes for Granpa:
- Adaptation Expansion: The book is pretty minimalistic but the film includes imagination shots not otherwise seen in the book.
- Adapted Out: The end of the book shows Emily pushing a new baby sibling in a baby carriage, representing that life goes on after Granpa's death. The film omits the baby, and instead shows Emily frolicking with a vision of Granpa's boyhood self and his childhood friends.
- Bittersweet Ending: Granpa dies but leaves behind his memories with Emily, represented by her jaunt with the children from the Imagine Spot of Granpa's reminiscences of his own childhood.
- Call-Back: At the beginning, Emily comes to visit Granpa and finds that he's not in the house or the yard, so she runs to the greenhouse, where sure enough she finds him working. Near the end, when she finds Granpa's chair empty, she goes out to the greenhouse to look for him, but he's not there either.
- Cheerful Child: Emily is full of liveliness, imagination and joy. That is, until she loses her beloved Granpa. But at the very end, her cheerfulness seems to be coming back.
- Children Are Innocent: Emily doesn't seem to understand that her grandfather doesn't have much time to spend with her.
- *Crack!* "Oh, My Back!": Granpa does this in a middle of a dance with Emily.
- De Aged In Death: After Granpa's death, as Emily takes comfort in her memories of him, the children from the earlier flashbacks to his childhood appear and frolic through the grass with her, including Granpa himself as a boy, who holds her hand.
- Doting Grandparent: Granpa adores Emily, does all sorts of activities with her, and happily takes part in her pretending games.
- Empathy Pet: To some degree, Granpa's dog. He takes part in almost all of Granpa and Emily's activities and shares in their emotions.
- Fantasy Sequence: The film and book are full of these, mainly triggered by Emily imagining (such as pretending that a rollercoaster on a seaside pier is a fighter jet or that they hook a Russian whale while fishing on a quiet stretch of the River Thames), or whenever it flashes back to Granpa's past.
- Foreshadowing: There are numerous early hints of Granpa's advancing frailty and eventual death, such as his *Crack!* "Oh, My Back!" moment when he tries a more energetic dance with Emily, the moments when he keeps dozing off or losing his concentration while trying to read the story of the three knights, or when he "nearly slip[s]" while playing with Emily in the snow. He also goes from being fully abled at first to needing a cane to walk.
- Invisible Parents: Emily's. From all implications, they're there, it's just that she spends more time with her Granpa than she does them. One of them technically does appear in the opening montage, in a photo of a younger Granpa with his wife and children, but which child grew up to be Emily's parent is never revealed.
- No Name Given: The only character addressed by name is Emily, Granpa and his dog are not.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: How we and Emily know Granpa passed away, as she usually meets him in his greenhouse or finds him sitting in his chair. When she searches for him and can't find him in either place, she realizes he's gone.
- Rain, Rain, Go Away: At one point, Granpa and Emily are stuck inside during a rainstorm. They make the most of it by pretending that the house is Noah's Arc.
- Snow Means Death: It's implied that Granpa died some time in the winter.
- Time-Passes Montage: The short opens with a photo album showing Granpa's entire life: his infancy, childhood, young manhood, marriage, the birth of his two children, his growing old with his wife, and finally (apparently after his wife's death) the birth of Emily.
- Wham Line: "I'm not quite quick enough...anymore." This line really throws into stark relief just how frail Granpa has become, and how little time he has left.
- Your Days Are Numbered: Granpa knows this and he is shown to be growing weaker as the seasons pass.
