Movie Review: Wolf Children

Movie Poster from Wikipedia

Internet ads! Usually people actively ignore them. Usually I have my ad-skeptic-filter at such a high setting that even ads for things I already know about have no click-inducing power. My brother and I used to play a game with TV ads: who can guess what it is about first? And then we'd go into a session of making fun of the ad and talking about why it was so pointless and awful. This honed my resist-the-actual-intent-of-the-ad skills.

However, I must confess I was caught by an internet ad recently. The text: DISCOVER THE NEXT MIYAZAKI.

If you know me well, you will know that this caught my attention. Miyazaki is a Japanese genius, well known for directing amazing animated movies. I grew up renting My Neighbor Totoro enough times to have bought it several times over before we finally found somewhere to buy it. Then followed the magical years when we found out he made other films, and every year at Christmas there would be another Miyazaki film for me under the tree. My favorites are Howl's Moving Castle and Spirited Away in addition to Totoro, but ALL of his films are fantastic.

Sadly, I heard that his latest movie, The Wind Rises, is to be his last. I have not seen it yet as it does not come out in North America until late February. I almost don't want to watch it because then everything will be over. No more Miyazaki movies.*

Thus, my fascination with this ad: DISCOVER THE NEXT MIYAZAKI.

The picture was art in a similar animated style to Miyazaki's. The title: Wolf Children. Still hesitant to click on random internet ads, I turned to Google. I read through articles, watched the trailer, and tried not to get too excited. I failed. It went straight on my Amazon wish list and I considered buying it right then.

I was in Best Buy with a good friend of mine getting her an external hard drive, and we browsed the movie section because she is a movie fanatic. She picked up some Disney movies, and I saw the cover of Wolf Children and picked it up immediately. The screenshots are adorable; the summary intriguing. So despite it being a blu-ray-dvd combo (and I dislike blu-ray and don't have a player), I bought it.

I watched it the following evening. It's so good! The premise, which isn't a spoiler because it's on the back of the box: main character woman falls in love with a wolf man, has two children with him, and then he dies. The movie is the story of this single mother and the difficulties of raising two wolf children in secret.

Had someone told me this was a Miyazaki film, I could have believed them. It has a little of a different feel, but then, if I didn't know better I wouldn't have pegged Totoro as having the same director as Princess Mononoke. The art of Wolf Children was beautifully done, with the same loving attention to detail as in a Miyazaki film, just using minute touches of CGI to enhance the art as was done in Spirited Away. I should pause here to note the film's actual director, to give credit: Mamoru Hosoda.

He was apparently commissioned to direct Howl's Moving Castle before the project was transferred to Hayao Miyazaki. I am intrigued. Though from brief biographical research, it looks like Hosoda got started on Digimon and other such TV shows with which I do not have much experience. Eh, we'll see where he goes from here. With Wolf Children, he has crafted something beautiful.

I won't go into too much story detail because I truly think you should watch it, but I will say that baby wolf pup-kids are just as adorable as they sound. They pop back and forth between forms, which makes it challenging for their mother Hana to raise them in the city. They eventually go to try the country, and much of the story is about Hana's struggles to grow food and to grow closer to her neighbors without revealing her secrets.

The children grow in stature and in character, each learning to follow their own path. They learn about their human sides and their wolf sides. They have spats, as children will, made more dangerous by their ability to be wolves. They make friends and mentors. And they travel through beautiful landscapes to do so.

The children are the focus, but it is a mother's story. Hana's vow to the wolf man she loved was to raise their children as best she could, and she does a wonderful job despite many hardships. It's a storyline that could be a cheesy drama, but instead turns out to be truly beautiful. And I enjoyed the subtle addition of fantasy that the wolf-ness lent. That's about the only "magical" element though; otherwise it's a real-world story. It's refreshing to know that stories about wolf people can still be amazing and great despite the current flood on the market of lesser werewolf stories.

Go watch it and tell me what you think!

*As I was writing this and checking my facts, I found that Miyazaki has made false claims of retirement before. And this time he may already be coming out of retirement to draw manga. I'll retain hope that he may yet have another movie in him, but I am content to know that others will take up the task of creating well-thought-out animated artistry.