MARY AND THE WITCH’S FLOWER
It’s a kinda magic…
CERTIFICATE TBC DIRECTOR Hiromasa Yonebayashi Starring Ruby Barnhill, Kate winslet SCREENPLAY Hiromasa Yonebayashi, Riko sakaguchi DISTRIBUTOR Altitude running time 103 mins OUT 4 MAY
f ormer Studio Ghibli director Hiromasa Yonebayashi (When Marnie Was There) returns with the inaugural movie for Japanese animation outfit Studio Ponoc. Based on the British author Mary Stewart’s 1971 children’s tale The Little Broomstick, Mary And The Witch’s Flower certainly feels like it’s from the Ghibli stable, with its blending of the real world and fantasy into a story likely to satisfy adults and kids alike.
Harry Potter fans will fall for Mary (The BFG’s Ruby Barnhill, voicing in the English dub version), who discovers a magic flower and a broomstick that whisks her off to a school for wizards and warlocks. Running the school is Madam Mumblechook (Kate Winslet) and her cohort Doctor Dee (Jim Broadbent), neither as benevolent as they first seem.
With many of the film’s animators ex-Ghibli, it should come as no surprise that the visuals are bright, inventive and abstract (not least when Mary discovers some animal experiments). Dealing with the pernicious nature of power, it trips along at a cracking pace too, with the action sequences lending it real verve. Enchanting.
THE VERDICT
Weird and wonderful. Yonebayashi’s latest is very much on a par with the Ghibli greats. Fans will dig it.