Mary and the Witch’s Flower (2017)
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Mary and the Witch’s Flower Movie Review
Mary and the Witch’s Flower is a 2017 anime fantasy film directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi. It is the first feature film from Studio Ponoc and a pretty strong one.
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“Fly-by-Night: the flower that blooms once in seven years“
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The story is very interesting here and highly engaging to follow. It is a fantasy that follows a young red-haired girl who gets to go to a magic school, but after her friend is kidnapped, she has to go save him. The film is hardly original as it has a touch of Harry Potter in it along with many Studio Ghibli influenced character designs, fantasy elements and plot points – ‘Spirited Away’, ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’ and ‘Ponyo’ all immediately spring to mind.
However, that doesn’t mean that the story is bad as it has its own interesting ideas such as the villain twist as well as the theme of animal cruelty which is not fully explored, but is still touched upon and that is an important issue for me so I admired it. I liked the film’s darker sensibilities quite a bit.
Mary Smith is a terrific heroine and fares pretty well against some of the best of Ghibli heroines. I loved the reconstruction of Mary Sue as she seemed invincible at first and then that was proved wrong. I loved her constant struggle to be better and her struggle with her incompetence as well as her instant self-gratitude. She experiences great growth throughout the film and is just a lovely character all around.
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Peter is also very good as her friend and although underutilized, his presence is felt and I liked how she had to save him even though she did not care for him all too much. Both characters have an interesting look to them owing to authentic character design. Charlotte’s backstory is well explained but not that great of a twist. And of course I really liked Doctor Dee and Madame Mumblechook who are interesting sort of villains – cartoony and goofy but competent. I loved the reconstruction of a magic school as a dark, sinister place.
Mary and the Witch’s Flower has to be seen mostly for its animation. As I’d come to expect from these filmmakers, the quality of animation work is staggeringly magnificent. They just make the best looking animated films these days. The characters look terrific, the school looks wonderful and of course the animals and fantasy creatures and elements are colorful and highly memorable. The highlight though is the background work with the sky scenes, all action scenes and especially the interiors and forests being meticulously detailed and gorgeous to behold. The colorful approach worked in its favor to accompany the fantasy elements to the fullest extent.
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Now Mary and the Witch’s Flower is just a very good, never great film owing to a variety of reasons. One is the unoriginality of its plot as it borrows ideas heavily from its predecessors. But a bigger problem is the second half as the first half is so magical, perfectly slow and a case of great modern fairy tale where a girl enters a magic world, but the second half never really delivered on its magical promises to the fullest degree as the pacing is off and some scenes are rushed.
The entire film felt somewhat rushed and oddly put together and it lacked a refined touch from a better director as certainly Hiromasa Yonebayashi is not the most capable anime director out there. This flick is better than ‘Arrietty’ but much weaker than ‘When Marnie Was There’. I still liked its dialogue and themes quite a bit, even if those were mostly rushed. The emotion needed to be stronger, but the characterization and voice acting are both superb as are the film’s exhilarating action sequences.
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This is the first film from newly created Studio Ponoc. So various filmmakers left Studio Ghibli after the faith of the entire studio was put on hold and they started their own studio and created their first movie. I fully commend their work here and I am happy that we finally got our Ghibli back, even if it is in a different form, but still being pretty much the same. I wish them all luck and I will be following their works closely in the following years.
Mary and the Witch’s Flower is an uneven work owing to its rushed pace and not fully explored themes. However, this is still a great, promising first step from Studio Ponoc and I will be following them closely in the future. The darker tone is intriguing as it its theme of animal cruelty, the character growth is excellent as Mary is not just a Mary Sue, but a complex, simply wonderful main character and although the plot is hardly original being a mix of Harry Potter and various Studio Ghibli ideas, it is still magical, engaging to follow and charming. The standout aspect is of course its animation which is excellent in character design, meticulous in details and simply gorgeous in lovely backgrounds and colorful approach.
