Rent A Letter to Momo (2011)

Uplifting, warm-hearted and sensitive - A Letter to Momo review by Cliff

I thoroughly enjoyed this film. It draws on familiar antecedents from Labyrinth to Spirited Away and yet transcends them. Despite all the humour and adventure, it deals with the difficult issue of a parent's death in a sensitive and thoughtful way, rather than being simplistic and sentimental. The artwork is based on real-life locations and is drawn in a deliberately artistic way. The animation of the human figures is carefully observed.

Ghibli lite - A Letter to Momo review by RT

Version I saw: UK DVD release (subtitled)

Actors: 6/10

Plot/script: 6/10

Photography/visual style: 7/10

Music/score: 6/10

Overall: 6/10

It's probably a bad sign that, when I came to review this film, I remembered very little of the plot, and needed to look up a synopsis to refresh my memory.

The story follows Momo, a preteen city-girl whose father dies, forcing her and her mother to move to her mother's rural childhood home. There, she accidentally summons three mischievous yokai (mystical creatures from Japanese folklore somewhat akin to fairies or goblins) who shake up her life with their antics, forcing her to confront her unresolved family and other issues.

It's a fairly well-trodden path narratively, but I think it owes most to iconic Studio Ghibli works including Kiki's Delivery Service and My Neighbour Totoro. The attempt, it seems, is to create a version of these stories aged up to the tween demographic.

Although Momo and her mother are voiced by fairly inexperienced actors, the three yokai are played by a selection of tried-and-trusted veterans: Cho, Koichi Yamadera and Toshiyuki Nishida. What life and energy there is emerges mainly from this trio of likeable, cartoonish agents of chaos.

The art style, tasked with marrying up magical fantasy with everyday realism, presents what seems an authentic portrayal of the Japanese countryside, but perhaps leans further in the direction of realism and away from the fantastical than I might have liked.

If I have one major criticism though, it is not of the film itself at all, but the subtitles. With white lettering and no border, they became difficult to read against any bright background, and impossible when the background was white, as it often was. To make things worse, they are dubtitles - the script of the English dub, in which extra lines have been added - so on some occasions we see a line of dialogue pop up into complete silence. The only way this can have passed is if nobody at western distributor Anime Limited bothered to watch the finished product before shipping it, and fraknly, it is not good enough.

Aside from the subtitles, I don't honestly think there is a great deal wrong with A Letter To Momo. If it has weaknesses, they are just in extent. On pacing, they erred on the side of slow and gentle. The human characters are recognizable and relatable, to the extent of being humdrum and mundane. The tone is bittersweet, but I might have preferred a bit more of the undeniable charm and warmth that can be seen at times.

The end result, though, is somewhat middle-of-the-road, lacklustre. I enjoyed the 2 hours-ish I spent watching it, but the fact is that there are many better films I could have been watching instead.

For my full review, see my independent film review blog on Blogspot, Cinema Inferno.