In 2017, it was announced that Studio Ghibli was coming out of enforced hibernation with a new film due from founder Hayao Miyazaki at some point in the next two years if all goes to plan. Hopefully, we’ll get a resumption of normal service, but one key creative missing will be Hiromasda Yonebayashi, who started out as an animator then graduated to direct two of Ghibli’s most accessible later entries, Arrietty and When Marnie Was There. That’s because he’s jumped ship (along with several other ex-Ghiblers) and started a new venture, Studio Ponoc (see what they did there?). And he’s wasted no time picking up where he left off: if you were charmed by the warm-hearted wanderings of Arrietty and Marnie, you’re on safe ground here.
Like Yonebayashi’s previous two films, it’s based on a book by an English author, in this case, Mary Stewart’s ‘The Little Broomstick’. When visiting her aunt in the countryside, schoolgirl Mary Smith (voiced on the UK dub by Ruby Barnhill) wanders off and picks some ultra-rare blueberries that turn out to have mysterious powers. Next thing you know, she’s gotten herself a cat sidekick, a magic broomstick and a place at Endor College for witches, where she soon finds her abilities are off the scale compared to her fellow pupils. Wouldn’t you know it, she’s the chosen one. Things turn sinister when her nice Headmistress reveals a nasty obsession with those blueberries. Brave Mary must martial the forces of good to stop the evil hag in her tracks.
Perhaps mindful of it being a keystone for his new studio, Yonebayashi doesn’t exactly re-write the rulebook with Mary and the Witch’s Flower. Visual and narrative allusions to Ghibli films come so thick and fast it often feels more like a greatest hits package. Spirited Away and Kiki’s Delivery Service are particular points of reference, with – among many other nods – a very ‘Spirited’ vibe to the music, a re-worked version of that film’s water sprite creature and a central young lead who rides around on a magic broom with her little black cat in a very Kiki-ish way. This all brings a vague smile of familiarity. More grating is the blatant Hogwarts re-tread: the place even looks the same inside. Still, the hand-drawn animation is very good, if markedly less finessed than that of his former studio or the new benchmark in blockbuster anime, Your Name, which authentically built upon the Ghibli model without self-consciously aping it as this does.
The critics have been very kind to Mary and the Witch’s Flower so perhaps we forgot to pick up our complimentary rose-tinted glasses on the way in, but there’s nothing here we haven’t seen done before – and better.
MARY AND THE WITCH’S FLOWER / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: HIROMASDA YONEBAYASHI / SCREENPLAY: RIKO SAKAGUCHI, HIROMASA YONEBAYASH / VOICE CAST: RUBY BARNHILL, JIM BROADBENT, KATE WINSLET / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
Expected Rating: 8 out of 10
