‘The Boy and the Heron’ review: Miyazaki’s lovely, likely final movie

“The Boy and The Heron,” director Hayao Miyazaki’s latest animated fantasy that had its North American premiere Thursday at the Toronto International Film Festival, could be the legendary filmmaker’s saddest movie. 

We’re distraught from the start as little Mahito’s mom is about to die in a hospital fire after a bombing during World War II, and the boy races through the flames to try and save her as sirens blare. Tragically, his brave efforts prove not enough. 

Kids are resilient, yes, but Miyazaki knows they’re not robots either. When Mahito’s father Shoichi, who builds planes for battle, relocates his family from Tokyo to the countryside, the downcast young man desperately misses his mother and resents his new stepmom, Natsuko. Grief plays a starring role here.

And then there’s the heartache on the other side of the screen.

The viewers are upset because, in the back of our minds, we know this is probably Miyazaki’s final movie. The genius behind “Spirited Away” (flat-out one of this century’s best films), “My Neighbor Totoro” and many more classics is 82 years old and came out of retirement to make “Heron.” It’s been a decade since his last flick, “The Wind Rises,” and it’s assumed he won’t churn out another after this.

However, should this be the end of the road for him, take heart that the Japanese director’s visual majesty and uncontrollable imagination are as fully present as ever. And so is his unparalleled understanding of what makes children tick. A filmmaker rarely goes out with his head held so high.

“Heron” is not as perfect as some of Miyazaki’s past movies. The trippy story is dizzying by the end as too many characters are introduced too late and we navigate a thicket of hastily explained narrative elements. But it nonetheless leaves a powerful emotional effect if you let it wash over you. And, come on, I’ll take medium Miyazaki over “Super Mario Bros.” any day.

The movie — which will be released in the US on Dec. 8, presumably with English dubbing — starts out as a rural postcard and then ventures into a fantastical Wonderland after Mahito meets the titular heron. 

That aggressive bird, who naturally can speak, beckons the boy by telling him that his mother is actually still alive in a nearby magical tower. Mahito takes him up on the offer after he witnesses Natsuko, who is pregnant and has been bedridden with sickness, wander into the old castle.

Mahito and the Heron, who has a cranky, Danny DeVito-like man inside him, enter the tower and are whisked to the sort of grand and strange world that this director revels in, be it a bathhouse for spirits or a walking castle with four legs. 

In this one are hilarious, giant, human-eating parakeets and adorable, little, fat creatures called “warawara” who bop along. Mahito meets a forthright seafarer named Kiriko and Himi, a young sorceress, who guides him through portals to different lands and introduces him to his great-great uncle, a powerful being who keeps the world afloat. A sort-of villain is the Parakeet King.

But their specific motivations don’t matter. They exist only to help along Mahito’s moving journey of self-discovery.

Tears flow as the boy’s quest for his mom subtly turns into a search and rescue mission for Natsuko, his stepmother. Miyazaki, as he so often does, places a child in the most fanciful place imaginable only to leave him more grounded and fulfilled than he was before. Dorothy in Oz, but with much deeper feeling.

This has been a strong year for animation, with stunners such as “Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse” and the surprising “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem.”

But I’ll miss the Miyazaki experience of being led into a totally new, unfamiliar place that you’ve never been before and will never go again.