Hiromasa Yonebayashi, “Mary and the Witch’s Flower” (2017)
A visually very attractive family movie, clearly influenced by the Studio Ghibli animation style – indeed, director Hiromasa Yonebayashi had worked for that studio for 18 years as an animator and then a director before leaving in 2014 to establish his own studio, Studio Ponoc – nevertheless, “Mary and the Witch’s Flower” falls rather flat due to insufficiently developed characters and a dull and slow plot. For reasons not made clear, eleven-year-old Mary Smith comes to stay with her great-aunt Charlotte in the English countryside during school holidays while her parents remain in the city. Bored, with no friends, and not able to do house or garden chores well, Mary is encouraged instead to go walking through the country and to the local village. She meets local boy Peter who teases her about her clumsiness and her red hair. His pet cats Tib and Gib lead her into a forest where she finds mysterious blue flowers; her great-aunt’s gardener identifies the flowers as “fly-by-night”, said by local legend to be favoured by witches for their magical powers.
The next day, Gib disappears and Tib leads Mary into the forest again where she finds a broomstick. Mary accidentally bursts a fly-by-night bulb onto the broomstick, and it immediately transports her and Tib to a fantastical complex of buildings high in the clouds. The complex turns out to be Endor College, an academy that trains witches, and there Mary meets the principal Madame Mumblechook and chief chemistry lecturer Doctor D who believe her to be a new student. They take Mary on a tour of the college – she secretly steals a book on magic while the principal’s back is turned on her – and they explain the various courses of magic. Mary admits her power comes from the fly-by-night bulbs and the principal sends her away after Mary gives her Peter’s address. Later, when Mary has returned home, she receives a message from Madame Mumblechook that Peter has been kidnapped and that she, Mary, must bring the fly-by-night flowers as a ransom.
You can guess what happens next … the ransom exchange turns out to be a trap and Mary ends up a prisoner at Endor College, in the process discovering the devious experiments the principal and Doctor D are conducting in the college laboratory. Luckily, Mary uses the magic book to get herself and Peter out of their prison and free their fellow prisoners. The madame and the doctor still have various tricks up their sleeves and contrive not only to keep Peter prisoner but also to continue, even ramp up their experiments on him.
The film is slow in delineating its plot for its first half, and one might expect considerable character exposition to occur here, but the characters of Mary and Peter remain sketchy and one-dimensional. The plot only really speeds up in the film’s second half but rushes so much that character motivations, including those of the villains, are left unexplained. The madame and the doctor turn out more fallible than devious, and viewers never know why the fly-by-night flowers are so powerful compared to other herbs and blossoms that the duo become completely obsessed by them.
At the end of the film, Mary and Peter appear not to learn anything from their experiences – Mary even renounces the use of magic – and among other things this conclusion helps to drain the film of any depth or charm. In the hands of Studio Ghibli, Mary would have discovered valuable life lessons – such as learning the consequences of, and taking responsibility for, thoughtless actions aimed at hurting others, and becoming confident, selfless and brave – and at the end of the film she would have transformed from being a petulant, whining child into a girl ready for adolescence.
Apart from the plot, and perhaps elements that seem derived from earlier Studio Ghibli classics like “Kiki’s Delivery Service” and “Spirited Away”, the main attraction of “Mary …” is its detailed animation, particularly in its backgrounds, which often look more real than reality itself.