Most things end like crap. I’m not just talking about the new Star Wars trilogy, but pretty much everything. Your favorite athlete will likely hold on too long. She’ll go from bringing you unbridled joy to looking lost or getting hurt. The very best outcome for the very best romantic relationship in your life is one of you dies.
This is a review for an animated film, by the way.
The point is that if this is the last Hayao Miyazaki film we get, if this is the last time his uniquely magical blend of grotesque beauty and complicatedly surreal simplicity hits screens and eyes, what a triumph. Because, as virtually everyone who says the word “anime” without judgment will tell you, The Boy and the Heron is about ending things and letting go.
It doesn’t say that doing those things are easy or even okay or the right thing, by the way.
Instead, the film simply says that it must be done because the pain of any other choice is enough to make you smash a rock into your head. The Boy and the Heron is about a boy named Mahito who smashes a rock into his head. He has good reason! Having lost his mother in a particularly flammable tragedy, he has watched his father remarry his mother’s sister and will soon have a new sibling. Apparently, before cognitive behavioral therapy was invented, you had to talk to a bird about all of this.
Speaking of birds that can talk, I saw the subtitled version, by the way.
I mention that because I won’t be able to comment on Robert Pattinson’s voicework as the curmudgeonly, possibly evil gray heron. The freakishly assembled creature shows up while Mahito is convalescing from his self-inflicted headwound. It’s not some beautiful gesture, where the winged creature helps the boy transcend his pain. The giant stork-thing shows up, taunts the child, craps through his window, and flies off.
If you’re terrified of birds, you shouldn’t see this, by the way.
Because when Mahito follows the heron into another world, it involves a lot of militant parakeets, which was not a thing I knew could be so upsetting. Because this is a Miyazaki movie, the goal here isn’t some giant conflict-driven battle but a stumbling through dream logic into something that resembles acceptance. What’s truly glorious is that it isn’t so in-your-face or saccharine that it forces tears from you in an obvious way.
You’ll probably cry about it later, by the way.
Whether or not you consider this near or at the top of Miyazaki’s body of work, it doesn’t feel like an artist out of ideas. It doesn’t feel like an athlete losing a step. It doesn’t feel like a relationship that’s lost its flame. It feels like the uniquely ugly-gorgeous, magically delicious view of the world that we’ve been lucky enough to get over the last half century. If this is goodbye, it is a good goodbye.
And that’s as good as it gets, by the way.
Grade = A
Other Critical Voices to Consider
Jared Mobarak at Hey, Have You Seen? says “A paradise turned nightmare with some really jarring imagery that drives home the fact we cannot eradicate hardship simply by willing it. Because even if you do for yourself, that peace comes via the sacrifice of others.”
Timothy Lee at Geeks of Color says “The Boy and The Heron isn’t just a modern masterpiece. It is the ultimate culmination of everything that Miyazaki has worked on and achieved.”
Sherin Nicole at Geek Girl Riot says “Mourning will always tell its story in its specific way—often when grief pours out it overflows in a stream of consciousness that cannot remain bottled up. Luckily for us, an unstoppered Miyazaki-san still intoxicates.”