The Boy and The Heron find adventure, not the area of a triangle (for my fellow math geeks)

The Boy and The Heron (2023)

Hayao Miyazaki has done it again.  It is very rare for a filmmaker to produce nothing but hits, but Miyazaki is a special breed.  We have been spoiled by his genius, so much so, that The Boy and the Heron is one of his worst movies and it is still terrific.  If you are familiar with his work, The Boy and the Heron will leave you satisfied with the familiar pattern of Miyazaki’s storytelling.  Like most of his movies, it begins with a child facing tragedy, leading to a major change in their life or living conditions.  The change brings them to a new place, where their natural, youthful curiosity leads them to a world on the fringes, where fantasy meets reality, leading to a beautiful, fanciful, and weird adventure.  The Boy and the Heron hit all of the traditional beats, but admittedly started slow.  It took nearly a full hour before the expected oddities started to take over.  But once they started, they did not let up.  While the connecting factor between the real and fantasy world was a stretch, once the titular boy, Mahito, endured his tragedy (death of his mother and his father courting, impregnating, and marrying her twin sister within 2 years), he took off on a very bird-centric adventure.  Mahito was led by the Heron, voiced by an unrecognizable Robert Pattinson (who should clearly do more VO work), to a world of squishy souls, hungry pelicans, and unnervingly menacing parakeets, led by Dave Bautista.  Mahito’s journey to connect to his new mother-aunt is magical and a stunning treat for the eyes and has absolutely no hanging story threads.  It is a gorgeous, tight story that anyone can enjoy and should enjoy.  Like every Miyazaki film, I enjoyed The Boy and the Heron.  I give The Boy and the Heron 5 out of 6 continents to which herons are native. (PS – Across the Spider-verse should have won the Golden Globe over The Boy and the Heron)