Mirai

The first ani­mat­ed Japan­ese fea­ture to receive its world pre­mière in Cannes, Mamoru Hosoda’s Mirai (aka Mirai of the Future, or Mirai: My Lit­tle Sis­ter) is a del­i­cate yet res­o­nant high­light of the 50^th Direc­tors’ Fort­night. In a sim­i­lar vein to the director’s ear­li­er ani­mé gems (The Boy and the Beast, Wolf Chil­dren, Sum­mer Wars), Mirai explores emo­tion­al truths via the height­ened sto­ry­telling trick­ery of fan­ta­sy and sci-fi. Here he returns to the time-bend­ing busi­ness that marked his 2006 break­through The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, but with a new famil­ial focus.

As the film opens, our title char­ac­ter has just been born, and her four-year-old broth­er Kun is about to have his world changed for­ev­er. Pre­vi­ous­ly the baby of the house­hold, he is now shunt­ed along the pro­duc­tion line of life, as his par­ents turn their atten­tions to the new arrival. He’s ini­tial­ly intrigued by his sis­ter, con­sid­er­ing her a wel­come addi­tion to the house­hold that serves as play­pal, play­thing and, in a very tac­tile, inquis­i­tive moment, Play-Doh, but Kun soon becomes incon­solably frus­trat­ed with his par­ents’ split priorities.

Viewed from above, Kun’s home is a nar­row, dis­tinc­tive build­ing, designed by his archi­tect father, hemmed in by larg­er, more tra­di­tion­al hous­es. Hosoda’s impli­ca­tion is clear: this is a mod­ern fam­i­ly, with mod­ern con­cerns. This is none more evi­dent than when Kun’s moth­er has to cut her mater­ni­ty leave short, leav­ing her hap­less part­ner to pick up the slack. Help, how­ev­er, soon arrives in the form of fam­i­ly mem­bers past, present and future, who call in for a series of mag­i­cal, edu­ca­tion­al encoun­ters. Chief among these is Mirai her­self, who appears as a teenag­er and nudges Kun along in his devel­op­ment through childhood.

Hoso­da and his team fill Mirai with detailed, real­is­tic loca­tions and char­ac­ter designs for the adults, but let loose with the chil­dren, specif­i­cal­ly Kun, whose expres­sive tooth-filled mouth splits into huge grins or gri­maces whether hap­py or mid-tantrum. His snot­ty, scream­ing melt­downs should grant Mirai a very dif­fer­ent sort of parental advi­so­ry stick­er. (Take that, Tul­ly.)

Once Hosoda’s fan­tas­ti­cal premise kicks in, Mirai unfolds into an episod­ic, almost plot­less sto­ry of a child find­ing their place in the world, and dis­cov­er­ing the respon­si­bil­i­ties and rela­tion­ships that help make up their devel­op­ing iden­ti­ty. At the heart of that is fam­i­ly, a series of emo­tion­al con­nec­tions that Hoso­da posits, and depicts, as some­thing of a sci­ence fic­tion con­cept: a nerve-cen­tre net­work of expe­ri­ence that tran­scends time to bind togeth­er mem­bers across gen­er­a­tions, car­ry­ing wis­dom and pro­vid­ing struc­ture and support.

Tak­en case-by-case, the film’s 98-minute run­time threat­ens to drag, espe­cial­ly as some life lessons take a more didac­tic turn – but viewed as a com­plete vision, it’s a remark­able blend of the inge­nious and the heartfelt.