Rent Howl's Moving Castle (2004)

A Spell That Never Quite Took - Howl's Moving Castle review by griggs

What held my attention here was less the story than the sense of Miyazaki smuggling something personal into it. The castle, Calcifer, the whole ramshackle spellbook of a world — all of that is marvellous, no argument. But the emotional pull felt oddly loose to me, as if the film kept drifting away from its own dramatic centre and into something more personal, more worked-through.

Sophie is where that reading really clicked. Her curse ought to be a punishment, yet it becomes a release. Once she is freed from the burden of youth, beauty and being looked at, she grows firmer, funnier, more direct, more fully herself. You can read her as Miyazaki imagining old age not as diminishment, but as freedom from the spell of expectation. Not decline, then, but clarity.

That idea is richer than the film around it. The anti-war thread is sincere, and the imagery is often gorgeous, but Howl’s Moving Castle left me admiring it more than feeling swept away by it. A fascinating, beautiful near-miss.

WIZARDS, WAR & WITCHES - Howl's Moving Castle review by CP Customer

A really good movie. A tale of wizards, world war and witches. Great animation style. Main character was a kind wizard.