The Boxtrolls (2014) is a beautifully-animated film set in a wacky world obsessed with cheese, buried beneath industrial bits and bobs, and populated by mindless citizens and little subterranean beasts that wear boxes as clothes.

The aptly-named town of Cheesebridge is overseen by a few aristocratic tools known as The White Hats. Distinctively characterized by tall, white hats, and headed by the dimwitted Lord Portley-Rind (Jared Harris). The oligarchs love nothing in the world as much as their status. How the White Hats came to hold this level of privilege is unknown. Whether or not they are qualified is irrelevant (they aren’t - one admits he’s there because he’s rich). They’re the White Hats, and they spend their days sitting around eating cheese, discussing cheese, looking at cheese, and figuring out ways to spend the town’s budget on cheese. They forego the construction of a children’s hospital to instead invest in “The Briehemoth,” a house-sized wheel of brie. Portley-Rind’s daughter, Winnie (Elle Fanning), tries desperately to get his attention, but since she’s not made of cheese, he’s really not that interested.

The main villain of the piece, a Boxtroll-kidnapping exterminator known as Archibald Snatcher (Ben Kingsley), wants nothing more than to become a White Hat. As it is, he’s a Red Hat, a “commoner,” and that just doesn’t suit his aspirations of climbing the hierarchical ladder. It doesn’t matter that he has a violent allergy to cheese, his life goal is to join the White Hats in the cheese tasting room. The White Hats are “the top,” and in order to get there, Snatcher will do just about anything. He makes a bargain with Lord Portley-Rind that if he can rid the town of every last Boxtroll, he earns a White Hat. Portley-Rind hesitantly agrees, and thus the film’s story begins.

This hierarchical system in the film, while comical, makes a statement about the dangers of hierarchy on society. It shows how far people will go to reach the top of a societal ladder, even if they can’t even enjoy being there, or know why they wanted it in the first place. Snatcher essentially hunts down an entire race of creatures that are docile, reclusive, and innocent just so he can become a White Hat. He murders and he lies. He dresses up as a slutty showgirl to sneak into Portley-Rind’s fancy mansion gatherings just to get a taste of the high life.

And it’s not just Snatcher that has become a victim of the hierarchical platform. Everyone in Cheesebridge thinks the Boxtrolls are horrible, murderous beasts that steal children and tear people’s limbs off. The rumors tell of rivers of blood and piles of bones where Boxtrolls live, and despite no shred of evidence existing, everyone believes it because society says it is so. Snatcher represents the lower class, desperate to join the ranks of the upper class, evident in a scene where the populus gathers in the streets to cheer in unison “White Hat, White Hat!” to Snatcher’s benefit.

Mekado Murphy of the NY Times notes in an interview with The Boxtrolls director Anthony Stacchi, ““We wanted a hierarchical city, where rich people live at the top, and the people who are under their boots live at the bottom,” Mr. Stacchi said. This class metaphor played out in the design of a city that literally spirals and twists to its uppermost point.”

The Boxtrolls leaves it up to the film’s two main child characters, Winnie Portley-Rind and the picture’s main focus, Eggs (Isaac Hempstead-Wright), to bring people the wisdom of truth and not only end Snatcher’s whatever-it-takes quest for a White Hat, but to force some humility and understanding upon Lord Portley-Rind.

“The film bears witness to the evil that blossoms in privilege. Lord Portley-Rind is so easily seduced by the allure of ever-fancier cheeses that he neglects the needs of the lower classes, as well as those of his own daughter. It’s a dark enough film that we see little evidence of the power of goodness, except when delegates from each of the three classes finally converge and work together on overturning the fatally corrupt power structure.” - Tom Blunt, Word and Film

By the end, the tiers of hierarchy are blurred, and Snatcher finds out how seriously foolish devoting one’s life to breaking the glass ceiling to advance in a cheese-based hierarchy can be.