By Jessica Hall
‘I’m on top of the hill with a view in both directions,’ reports John Kelly, whose animated short ponders life in retirement and the meaning of time
You may want to get closer to nature in retirement.
Irish filmmaker John Kelly, who specializes in animation, had a panic attack on an airplane while going through endless flagged emails. That anxiety of having an immeasurable to-do list helped spark the idea of his Oscar-nominated animated short film “Retirement Plan.”
With two young children and aging relatives, Kelly, who’s 45, says he is caught in the middle.
“I’m not over the hill, but I’m on top of the hill with a view in both directions,” Kelly told MarketWatch. “I can see what’s ahead, and I can see what’s behind, and I can see time gathering pace exponentially.”
Ray, the main character of the seven-minute film, lists all the things he wants to do in life once he’s retired – ranging from sorting out his pension plan to getting a dog and a cat to having meaningful talks with a friend – before he runs out of time and ponders his final words.
‘You don’t really expect when you come to a flat-colored line-drawing character like this to experience an existential crisis.’
“Retirement Plan” was directed by Kelly and co-written by Kelly and Tara Lawall. The animation is voiced by actor Domhnall Gleeson, who has starred in films such as “About Time,” the “Harry Potter” series, the “Star Wars” sequel trilogy and Taylor Swift’s recent music video “Opalite.” The score is by John Carroll Kirby, featuring his piece “Walking Through a House Where a Family Has Lived.”
The film has won awards in various international film festivals, including the Palm Spring International ShortFest and the SXSW Festival. It’s nominated for best animated short film at the 98th Academy Awards, which air live this Sunday.
“I thought it would be interesting to tell the story of someone who was prioritizing their life in list form and trying to achieve everything they could and their own mortality gets in the way,” Kelly said.
Director and co-writer John Kelly.
Purpose in retirement
The film’s rise to an Oscar nod comes as people are living longer and are seeking purpose in retirement to define themselves after they’ve lost the structure, and social network, of a formal job. People now face such a vast menu of options due to technology that the choices in life seem boundless, but that abundance didn’t spark curiosity in Kelly. Instead it made him freeze.
“Twenty years ago you couldn’t take out your phone and learn 40 languages on Duolingo,” Kelly said. “Weirdly the effect of that isn’t [an appreciation of the] possibilities. For me it creates a feeling of paralysis – so all of that more kind of hit me while I was sitting on an airplane working through my flagged-email list.”
The animated nature of his film, Kelly said, gives it more power than a traditional film might have because it allows an audience to imagine themselves as the main character.
“You don’t really expect when you come to a flat-colored line-drawing character like this to experience an existential crisis. But you know that’s the beauty of simplicity. You can watch and project onto yourself even if you’re not an old white dude. You can be any person and you can see yourself in the character because it’s two dots for eyes and a line for the mouth,” Kelly said.
“The power of a good animator can imbue so much character into something without all these extraneous details. The power comes from how it was shot and the music and the performance. I think we wanted it to be a Trojan horse of sorts for a deeper context,” Kelly said.
‘If the viewer feels like their cage has been rattled a little bit, that’s not a bad thing.’
That deeper context is up to the viewer to determine, he said. “For me the surprise of the film is how much of a Rorschach test it is – depending on where you are in your life you might have a completely different response to it,” Kelly said. “What I tried to do with it myself was make myself feel a little uncomfortable. If the viewer feels like their cage has been rattled a little bit, that’s not a bad thing.”
Part of the inspiration for the film came out of the lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic. Kelly thought that, once it was over, he’d tackle certain projects. But he kept kicking the can down the road.
“That kind of mindset for me extended beyond COVID, and suddenly all my dreams for me were on a high shelf. That’s where I put them. The character in the film – time runs out for him because he’s left it too late. I hope people – not necessary because of our film – but it’s good policy generally to try to do what you can now and not wait.”
People and experiences, not money
The film’s main character tries out different items on his to-do list – from driving airport vehicles to camping and wine tasting – and most of the moments reflect experiences and people as important to him rather than the money focus that many people picture when they think ahead to retirement.
“I haven’t sorted my pension. But ultimately the pension is something you can defer. But friendships and deeper friendships and conversations are things you can also defer. Or take for granted that they’ll always be there. Even if it’s someone your own age, you can’t take anything for granted,” Kelly said. “I think we wanted to talk about in the film [that] what becomes really important to [Ray] is having that conversation with that friend or meeting up with that person or appreciating art. Taking care of yourself. Not achieving goals for goals’ sake.”
Kelly said his favorite experience with the film has been seeing it with audiences and watching their reactions. This week, the film screened at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles as one of the Oscars-week events.
“It’s certainly the nicest screening I’ve ever had of my film. What’s really enjoyable to watch with the audience is when he gets a cat and he’s already got a dog and they don’t get along. We had a screening of 1,500 people explode with laughter,” Kelly said. “We made this in my spare bedroom, and the animators made it from their home office in rural Ireland, and we weren’t thinking about the Academy Museum when we made it.”
‘From when I was 12 years old and making comics and passing them around to now making stuff for film festivals or putting them on YouTube, I don’t think I’ll ever not do it. It doesn’t feel like work to me.’
Kelly said he still has goals to tackle.
“I have to find my sport. I was thinking of trying to get a surfing lesson while I’m in Los Angeles because I’ve done it two times and I enjoy it. So maybe I’ll try to work that out next week, after the Oscars,” Kelly said.
He said he doubts that he himself will ever retire.
“It’s a vocation or a compulsion. From when I was 12 years old and making comics and passing them around to now making stuff for film festivals or putting them on YouTube, I don’t think I’ll ever not do it. It doesn’t feel like work to me,” Kelly said. “But I am expecting it to shift a gear down after this Oscar stuff. The film was inspired by feelings of being overwhelmed, and I’m now currently more overwhelmed than I’ve ever been. But it’s short-term and it’s such a joy to be on this road.”
Even if he never stops making art, Kelly understands, he said, that the film “Retirement Plan” may forever remain what he’s most known for.
“My co-writer Tara told her co-worker about the Oscar nomination, and his reaction was, ‘Wow, this will be in your obituary.’ So it is wild that this, somehow, probably is my legacy in a way. And it’s exciting because it is such a personal film. I’ve made stuff before but never something this personal. It’s very gratifying that something that’s this close to my heart has had such an amazing time.”
-Jessica Hall
This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
03-13-26 1411ET
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.