There are very few filmmakers who could reasonably claim to know more about the relationship between melancholy and fantasy than Hiromasa Yonebayashi. His first two films as a director - The Secret World of Arrietty and When Marnie Was There - are masterpieces of loneliness, in which isolated heroes embark upon enchanting larger-than-life adventures and mature into better, more heroic people. And of course, those stories are animated as beautifully as anyone could possibly hope for.
So it’s unfortunate that Hiromasa Yonebayashi’s third film, and his first outside of Studio Ghibli, simply isn’t as magical as the others. (And pretty ironic, considering this one is literally about magic.) Once again, the director has set out to tell a story about a stifled young person whose personal hangups parallel the lessons she must learn throughout a perilous, fantastical journey, only this time she doesn’t appear to learn anything particularly meaningful, and even the plot smacks of familiarity. It’s the same amount of effort for less reward than usual.
The title protagonist, Mary (voiced by Ruby Barnhill), is a young girl who hates her finicky red hair and who jumps headfirst into every task placed in front of her, and usually breaks something as a result. She’s persnickety to the only other child she knows in her new hometown, where she lives with her Great Aunt Charlotte (Lynda Barron), and she likes to vent her frustration onto a perpetually pissed-off cat named Tib.
Mary stumbles across a mysterious flower which only blooms once every seven years, and she discovers that the seeds give her magical powers for a few hours at a time. The seeds make her so powerful that she’s immediately recruited to a magical academy run by Madame Mumblechook (Kate Winslet) and Doctor Dee (Jim Broadbent), who tell her everything she’s always wanted to hear: she was born special and red hair is the best hair of all. In fact, to them she can literally do no wrong, even when she blows up their classrooms.
So it’s another story about getting everything you want and learning that it’s, um… wait, what does she learn? Rushing headfirst into danger is the cause of and solution to all of Mary’s problems in this movie, which means that no matter how beautifully animated this adventure is - and it sure is beautifully animated - it all feels rather pointless.
Ideas about transmogrification and the corruption of Madame Mumblechook and Doctor Dee’s students are introduced, but then go nowhere, or go somewhere interesting only to stop halfway through to take in the scenery before going back home again. Again, that scenery is delicious and well-worth chewing on - particularly a menagerie of experimental magical beasts, all of whom are as fabulous as any fictional creature you can think of - but we’re on a very familiar tour, and trudging in a circle no less.
There are plenty of new stories to be told about young magical people and their adventures. They don’t all have to feel rote, and even if they do, there’s more than enough personality in the world to make even the most Worst-Witch-or-Harry-Potter-esque tale feel fresh and exciting. (Have you ever seen Little Witch Academia? You should.)
And sure enough, Mary and the Witch’s Flower is lush and vibrant enough to be worth watching, but the appearance of magic doesn’t quite make it magical. The characters don’t evolve enough to make even the most incredible journey in the world seem important. And that’s a bit of a letdown after a film like When Marnie Was There, which was so monumentally emotional that even the film’s story problems - like a series of twists which just wouldn’t stop - seemed like nitpicks, instead of major issues.