Review

Review Date: 16-August-09
Spoiler Rating: Low
Juju Judgment: Just OK

Ponyo (English version) (2009)

Although I count myself among the fans of Hayao Miyazaki, I must admit that his movies (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle) have a tendency to ramble. Beyond their fantastic nature they suggest an artist who drifts where the story takes him without a definite destination in mind. Miyazaki's wanderings are usually worth following, particularly as they unfold among lush animation. But Ponyo, though pretty, rambles too much.

Perhaps we are meant to forgo a coherent story because Ponyo is geared toward tots more than Miyazaki's recent work. The hero is a five-year-old boy, and kids that age might just groove on the movie's scenes of a coastal town and panoply of sea life. The boy (Frankie Jonas in the English version) finds a fish with a human face and brings it to his mother (Tina Fey), who does not seem surprised. She is evidently too scattered, with a job at a nursing home and a nautical husband who is often away. The boy bonds with the tiny creature (voiced by Noah Cyrus) and names her Ponyo, and she also bonds with him. When she is retrieved by her father (Liam Neeson), a wizard who abandoned the human world for the ocean, she works some inherited magic to turn herself into a girl and return to her new friend posthaste. This choice is not without consequences as it causes a tsunami which requires both children to behave like adults.

Ponyo's origins in the sea allow for a subtle bemoaning of its polluted state; unfortunately, her desire to be human and mystical parentage also lead to vague themes about love, resurrection, and the "balance of nature." (This may make more sense to veterans of The Little Mermaid than it does to me.) Ponyo herself is cute in a way that only the Japanese can muster, but while I enjoyed seeing her discover the joys of electricity and noodle soup, I lost interest when her adventures became metaphysical. Ponyo might have been improved by a definite and down-to-Earth destination, even something as simple as a boy's (and his family's) life.

Copyright © 2009 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.