The Boy and the Heron
The Boy and the Heron
While the Second World War rages, the teenage Mahito, haunted by his mother's tragic death, is relocated from Tokyo to the serene rural home of his new stepmother Natsuko, a woman who bears a striking resemblance to the boy's mother. As he tries to adjust, this strange new world grows even stranger following the appearance of a persistent gray heron, who perplexes and bedevils Mahito, dubbing him the "long-awaited one."
Varun reviewedOctober 19, 2024
I watched this in theatres because it’s a rare opportunity to catch a Miyazaki film in IMAX. I seem to be in the minority of people who just can’t get on the hype train for this movie. Beautiful animation and an imaginative world isn’t enough to save a lame boring story. I couldn’t decipher a single theme or meaningful moment in the entire runtime no matter how hard I tried. It just meanders aimlessly and you aren’t rewarded for your patience. If someone tells me the story was a metaphor for something, it still doesn’t excuse writing bland characters and building a world with no rules to it. It’s crazy to me that I didn’t have even an ounce of fun watching a Studio Ghibli film (cue the gif of Homelander sitting stone-faced in a theatre). There’s not that much dialogue and the pacing is all over the place. I usually like watching YouTube videos explaining films but I’m not even going to bother with this snoozefest. Pretty visuals for 2 hours alone can’t immerse me when the plot is so hollow I have nothing to connect to. I haven’t been this disappointed at the theatres in a long time.