MIRAI

★★★★ OUT 2 November / CERT PG / 98 MINS Director Mamoru Hosoda cast Moka Kamishiraishi, Haru Kuroki, Gen Hoshino

DESPITE THE DIVERSE nature of his narratives, anime director Mamoru Hosoda has always focused on the importance of family. With Mirai, he draws on his own parental experiences for a story about a four-year-old boy’s passage from brattish only child to doting brother. irked by baby sister Mirai getting all the attention, Kun (Moka Kamishiraishi) comes to reassess his priorities after a series of Scrooge-like encounters with a human version of his pet dog, the teenage Mirai, his mother as a naughty child and his war-hero grandfather. Switching between the whimsical and the terrifying, the visions are exquisitely rendered. But Hosoda keeps it all rooted in a realism that’s both charming and insightful.