This ambitious, affable children’s film from Denmark—which features 100 backgrounds and 30-plus characters drawn in Photoshop, with each cell painted-by-hand and each character layered 600-times to enable movement—imagines famed English mystery purveyor Agatha Christie as a young child—in this case through the imagination of a lonely ten-year-old Agatha-Christine. Through books—and adorned Christie’s famed “Miss Marple” outfit of a large Fedora and red blazer with skirt—“AC” imagines herself solving crimes in a black-and-white, film noir world.

Moving with her mother and two siblings (her teen-sister Sara and her into-everything baby brother Kevin) to a new apartment, the building’s basement—complete with a friendly, talking gecko as her new “sidekick”—proves to be the perfect space to start her own detective agency. When a local shop becomes the scene of a crime, young Agatha sets her sights on Vincent, a ten-year-old skateboard-loving next door neighbor as her main suspect. It’s that “weird feeling” she gets in her stomach every time she sees him—”something’s up” with that boy.

If your little ones enjoy the reruns/restreams of the early 2000’s American-imported BBC children’s animated series Charlie and Lola, then they’ll enjoy the adventures of Agatha and Vincent. The action here is easy to follow and low-key, which is great for the kids but not so much for the adults, so a parent has no worries allowing their kids to stream this without supervision on their smart devices. They’ll learn valuable lessons regarding faith and trust in others, how to deal with feeling like an “outsider,” and that you should always be yourself and believe in the best “you” you can be—a great message for children to learn.

TriCoast Entertainment imported Agatha Christine: Spy Next Door for the first time to the U.S. on various VOD and PPV digital platforms (Amazon, AT&T, Fandango, FlixFling, InDemand, iTunes, and Vudu) for release on June 16.

Here’s the rest of the great films released under the Rock Salt Releasing/TriCoast Worldwide co-banner we’ve reviewed:

Blood Hunters: Rise of the Hybrids
Bombshells and Dollies
Case 347
Dollhouse
It All Begins with a Song
Lone Star Deception
My Hindu Friend
Nona
Revival
The Soul Collector
Tombstone Rashomon

Disclaimer: We were provided a screener by the film’s P.R firm. That has no bearing on our review.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies and publishes on Medium.