Mary and the Witch's Flower - Movie Review

Mary and the Witch's Flower comes to us from the director of The Secret World of Arrietty and When Marnie Was There, two films I really liked, especially Marnie. And this film follows Mary, a young girl with very messy hair who doesn't have too many friends, who follows a cat into the woods one day and finds a flower that she doesn't recognize. And when she breaks one of the bulbs of this flower, this substance gets all over her and she suddenly has all of these magical abilities. She gets transported to this different realm and this leads to a fantastical adventure where she tries to figure out if she wants to be her old klutzy self or this new powerful witch. When Hayao Miyazaki originally said he was going to retire after The Wind Rises, he has since said he will make one more film, members of Studio Ghibli left and formed Studio Panic. And this is Studio Panic's first film. So naturally I'm ecstatic that a new studio has been formed to continue the Studio Ghibli legacy and hopefully the following films are a little better than Mary and the Witch's Flower because this film is beautiful and stunning and has some incredible moments, the musical score being one of my favorites of recent anime films I've seen, but the script and the characters needed a lot of work. There's things to love about Mary and the Witch's Flower and most of it has to do with the technical aspects of the film on display. I'm never going to get tired of films that look this beautiful, of animation that leaps off the screen like this, that has such enthralling action sequences, but in the long run the film was disappointing because I just didn't care that much about Mary. The main character and her hero's journey is strangely murky. She stumbles across this flower which gives her these abilities. She doesn't know what's going on and it's not something she has to earn. Suddenly she's transported to this place that might as well be Hogwarts where you see people learning about witchcraft and wizardry. There's even a character with glasses seen trying to ride a broom that looked so much like Harry Potter I couldn't help but think it was a tongue-in-cheek reference. And when she's wandering this school everyone seems so impressed by her abilities when she knows it's just from this flower she touched. And so in some ways it relates to superhero tales because people like Peter Parker obviously got bit by a spider and suddenly now he has to deal these abilities. Most superhero films are like that or comic books where you have a character that encounters something or stumbles across something and all of a sudden they have this incredible responsibility they have to bear on their shoulders. The difference between Mary and some of those comic book heroes is that Mary doesn't have that much actual drama in her life and so obtaining these new abilities it's just sort of this fun new thing she has where she can do these things for a night and then they go away. What's so integral to stories like this where you have a character that encounters something that changes their life is the journey they take, how much they change, how much it alters them. What does the character learn? Without getting into spoilers the last thing Mary says in this movie lets you know that she didn't really learn much of anything and beyond one noble decision she makes I can't really see young girls looking to Mary and saying I want to be like Mary because there isn't that much about her that makes her stand out. She's a likable young girl who clearly wants to make an impression. She wants to help. A lot of the first act is her trying to sweep up or help with gardening and she fails because she's just not that good at anything and so the idea of her getting these abilities and suddenly being able to do all these things is cool but she doesn't really seem to learn all that much from them. It just kind of feels like something she stumbled across and doesn't really do much with. It would be like if Luke Skywalker went off to learn about the force but he sort of takes a pill that allows him to have the abilities and then at the end of the film he's like yeah all right I'm just going to go back to Tatooine and be a farmer again and he doesn't really do that much with his abilities. Also disappointing were the villains in the film. Once you learn their scheme and you see the choices they make to try to create something in the name of science you recognize that what they're doing is an abomination against mankind and against animals but beyond that their end goal is so unclear that you can't really understand their motivation either and a film that has villains that are doing evil things and their motivation is rather lacking that's not a good idea for your villain. The opening scene of this film was glorious. I thought to myself oh my god this is going to be great but it really goes downhill after that and in retrospect once you learn about the backstory that you see in the opening scene I think I'd rather see that story. That would be a much better film than the one we actually got. Things that Mary learns along the way about herself and about her family history should be a lot more impactful than they are for her character and for us as a viewer. So in the end this film disappointed me from an audio and visual standpoint. It's amazing. It's just that the characters really are the major disappointment here. The hero and the villains. I'm gonna give Mary and the Witch's Flower a C+. If you're a fan of films like this do check it out because you might have a different opinion than I do. Guys thank you so much as always for watching and if you like this you can click right here and get stuckmanized.