Written by: Hayao Miyazaki
Starring: Soma Santoki, Masaki Suda, Aimyon, Yoshino Kimura, Shōhei Hino, Ko Shibasaki
Rating: [3/5]
Successfully sailing off to the sunset under one’s own volition brings this finality that makes any final project difficult to put together, especially with a mind that has so many wonderful ideas. If something were to be the last one then it serves as the opportunity or the trap that even master filmmakers can fall into. In The Boy and the Heron we see this transpire with Hayao Miyazaki where in his attempt to produce his final feature he jams in far too many ideas where the plot gets lost, leaving the project to feel like an unfocused mess.
Following the tragic passing of his mother by fire, Mahito (Soma Santoki) moves to a rural estate with his father, who marries the sister of his deceased wife. Not necessarily happy with his new situation, Mahito gets lured by a mysterious heron (Masaki Suda), who promises to help him find the answers he seeks.
Hayao Miyazaki will forever stand as one of the greatest filmmakers to ever live and he has crafted so many spectacular films that I deeply adore but that does not mean every film of his will reach the heights of his masterworks. Some have to sit towards the bottom of his filmography by default, but it gives me no pleasure in saying The Boy and the Heron sits firmly at the bottom for me. Having a film I rate at this score as someone’s worst really says something but with the sky-high expectations that comes with his projects, it’s hard not to feel disappointed in the final product we receive here but even then it has plenty to appreciate.
The animation on display in this feature exhibits the beautiful hand drawn animation that we come to expect with anything Miyazaki crafts. An impressive artistic environment that combines the mystical with reality that becomes fully immersive in experiencing what Mahito does throughout this narrative. Certain sequences are truly breathtaking in some of the minimalism involved and then of course the bombastic and color-infused sequences that dazzle. In this particular arena this film certainly did not disappoint even in the slightest and it ultimately kept me from disliking the project as a whole.
However, when we dig into the narrative, we can see just how much Miyazaki wants to cram into this story with Mahito. Plenty of deep dives exist in displaying the deeply personal nature of this story in Mahito’s story and how it relates to the famous director’s life. We have these struggles of loss, trying to acclimate to a new environment, and caring for a new mother. Mahito battles with grief and a huge host of issues, which would make for their own excellent movie. But Miyazaki then combines this journey with this mystical uncle who can also be interpreted as himself acknowledging the world he has built and difficulty in finding a successor, which again could be its own incredible film. Then we have those man-eating parakeets, who also have their own claims to what the uncle has built that are both frightening but also quite funny. All of this gets jumbled together and none of these stories receive the adequate amount of attention and time to truly leave a mark. We receive these revelations that are meant to mean something critical in the story but they just happen and we move on because the narrative has to get to the other thread it wants to follow.
Knowing my love for Miyazaki, I wanted to grasp onto something in this film but the rushed nature of it never let me do so. Some claim this lack of cohesiveness serves as the very purpose of the film as it works in this dream logic, but it feels like nothing more than an excuse for some sloppy storytelling. Listen, I will find many ways to excuse issues in films I love and especially the directors who craft them, but it just does not fit when examining this film. It needed more refinement and we received all of these ideas that could not gel together in a film that already dragged with its pacing.
Giving a Miyazaki film anything other than at least a borderline positive score feels like a crime, so I will not do that but The Boy and the Heron falls prey to issues other lackluster films do in trying to balance far too much within its narrative. It does, however, get saved by the beautiful animation once again on display in this master filmmaker’s work that left me dumbfounded by the beauty along with another stellar Joe Hisaishi score. It has strong world building just as any of his films and contains a wondrous magic as we can come to expect but the narrative lacked a cohesive vision, which ultimately served as its detriment. With the initial belief of this film existing as Miyazaki’s final film, it perhaps made sense that he wanted to jam in all of his ideas in one final hoorah but with the news since its release that he has at least one more in him, the film just feels like more of a mess with no justifiable reason to excuse it.
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