Mary and the Witch's Flower (Japanese: ????????, Hepburn: Meari to Majo no Hana) is a 2017 Japanese anime fantasy film directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi and animated by Studio Ponoc for the Nippon Television Network and Mary and the Witch's Flower Film Partners, and distributed by Toho. Based on The Little Broomstick by Mary Stewart, this is Studio Ponoc's first feature film.
The film tells a story of a girl named Mary who finds a mysterious flower that can give her the power to become a witch for only one night. The film was released in Japan on 8 July 2017. In the GKIDS English-language version of the film, which was concurrently released with a subtitled version in the United States on 19 January 2018, the film features the voices of Ruby Barnhill, Kate Winslet and Jim Broadbent.
Video Mary and the Witch's Flower
Plot
A fire burns as workers struggle to control it. A red-haired girl slips away with a satchel slung on her wrist, but is quickly seen and followed. A group of workers transforms into watery, bird-like creatures, who pursue the girl in the air as she escapes via a flying broomstick.
However, a large, bright-blue explosion envelops the creatures, and the girl falls off the broomstick, her satchel opening upon impact. The small seeds inside drop to the forest floor, causing trees to rapidly grow, and young birds to mature to adulthood and fly away. The broomstick is also quickly swallowed up by the growing foliage.
- Young Mary Smith moves into the British estate of her Great Aunt Charlotte ahead of her parents. The bored, friendless girl tries to make herself useful through chores, but she repeatedly creates messes in the process. A local boy named Peter teases her for both her clumsiness and her wild red hair, which she hates.
Tib and Gib, Peter's cats, lead Mary to some mysterious glowing flowers. Zebedee, the estate gardener, identifies the flowers as "fly-by-night"; legend has it that witches covet the flower for its magical power. The next day, Gib disappears and Mary follows Tib to go look for her. Tib leads her to a broomstick ensnared in a tree's roots. Mary frees the broomstick, but accidentally bursts a fly-by-night bulb on it. The bulb releases magical power in the form of a blue gelatinous substance, making the broomstick come to life and enabling Mary to ride it like a witch. The Little Broomstick whisks Mary and Tib away to a complex of buildings hidden in the clouds. Flanagan, a fox creature who looks after student's broomsticks, scolds her for crash-landing her broomstick and tells her she's at the Endor College for witches.
The headmistress Madame Mumblechook assumes Mary is a new pupil with Tib as her familiar, and takes her on a tour of the college. The tour reveals a campus with modern technology and conveniences, wherein witches take courses in the magic arts alongside fields of science such as chemistry. During the tour Madame introduces Mary to Doctor Dee, the College's renowned chemistry teacher. Mary finds herself able to perform advanced spells such as invisibility. Madame and Doctor Dee become convinced that Mary is a prodigy, because of her performance as well as her red hair, which turns out be a distinguishing feature among the best witches.
At Madame's office, Mary finds a spell book hidden behind a picture of fly-by-night. Mary admits that her magical ability comes from fly-by-night, and that Tib actually belongs to Peter. Madame's attitude to Mary suddenly changes, but she still lets Mary return home. The magic granted to Mary by the flower ends as the sun sets and Mary barely makes it home safely. That night, Madame sends a message to Mary informing her that she's kidnapped Peter, and demands that Mary turn the fly-by-night bulbs to her. She and Tib fly back to Endor with the bulbs and Mary leaves the Little Broomstick by the school entrance. Madame and Doctor Dee imprison her and steal the bulbs, locking her in Doctor Dee's transformation spell lab. Mary finds Peter locked in the lab with her, and discovers Doctor Dee has been experimenting on animals transforming them into fantastic creatures, including Gib. In the spell book, Mary finds a spell that can undo all magic, and uses it to undo all the transformations and unlock the lab. As they try to escape, they find themselves cornered on a balcony, only for Flanagan to return the Little Broomstick, scolding Mary for leaving it lying around anywhere. They then try to escape, but Madame and Doctor Dee recapture Peter.
The Little Broomstick takes Mary to an isolated cottage. Within the cottage, Mary finds notes on transformation spells and a mirror that Great Aunt Charlotte uses to contact her. Charlotte reveals that the cottage was her previous home, and she used to be a red haired pupil that excelled at Endor (the one from the introduction). But one day Charlotte found fly-by-night on the campus, leading Madame and Doctor Dee to obsessively pursue a project to use the flower to transform all humans into witches. When one of their experiments disastrously failed, Charlotte decided to escape Endor, taking the flower with her. Charlotte begs Mary to use her last bulbs to return home, but Mary vows to rescue Peter instead.
As Mary attempts to return to Endor, Madame gives chase, demanding the spell book back. An aerial chase ensues, in which the book is stolen and Mary falls onto the island where the lab is. The Little Broomstick breaks and the magic of the flower runs out. Mary makes her way across the island where the lab is and finds Madame and Doctor Dee are trying to use the flower to transform Peter into a witch. The experiment fails again, leaving Peter trapped within a gelatinous monster that rampages across the lab, draining the magic of all in its path. Mary gets the spell book from Madame after she is drained and tries to break the enchantments on a canister to reach the last fly-by-night bulb. If she can regain her magic she can undo the spell binding Peter. She fails to reach it but realizes Peter can use magic now, and takes Peter's hand from within the monster and gives him the book with the spell to undo magic, allowing him to activate it. It undos the failed experiment as well as all of Madame and Doctor Dee's research relating to it. The lab is destroyed.
Mary awakens in the ruins of the lab, which has been completely grown over. Flanagan returns her broomstick to her, having repaired it, and scolds her for leaving her broomstick lying wherever she wants. The two take the Broomstick back home, but while flying, Peter sees a Witch's Flower bulb in her hair. She throws it away, stating she doesn't need magic anymore. The last bulb of the flower explodes in midair, no longer needed, presumably ending the Witch's Flower.
In the credits, Mary is shown to be back home, on her way to school with Peter. The Little Broomstick is shown leaning against the wall at the manor, home.
Maps Mary and the Witch's Flower
Voice cast
Music
Composer Muramatsu Takatsugu, who also scored Yonebayashi's last film When Marnie Was There, is in charge of the soundtrack for Mary and the Witch's Flower. Joshua Messick, one of the world's leading performers of the hammered dulcimer, participated in the score recording.
Release
Mary and the Witch's Flower was released theatrically in Japan on July 8, 2017 by distributor Toho, airing on 458 screens across Japan. Altitude Film Sales announced at the Berlin International Film Festival that it had acquired the worldwide rights to the film, and would release the film within the UK. Madman Entertainment announced that it had secured the rights to the film within Australia and New Zealand, and would premiere the film theatrically at Madman Anime Festival in Melbourne on November 5, 2017. GKIDS later announced that it would distribute the film within North America, with a one-week Oscar qualifying run on December 1, 2017, a limited opening on January 18, 2018, and a wider release on January 19, 2018. Altitude (the UK distributor) confirmed in early March 2018 that the film will have a special holding at selected Vue Cinemas on April 10, 2018 before it's official UK wide release on May 4, 2018.
The English dub of Mary and the Witch's Flower (starring Ruby Barnhill, Kate Winslet, Jim Broadbent) was directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi and produced by Geoffrey Wexler. The English dub was recorded in September 2017 in London, and had its premiere in Los Angeles on October 23, 2017.
The movie was released on DVD, Blu-ray, Digital HD and 4K Ultra HD by Walt Disney Japan on March 20, 2018. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray in North America by GKIDS' main home media distributor Universal Pictures Home Entertainment on May 1, 2018. Altitude Film Distribution will release the film on DVD, Blu-ray and a Blu-ray Steelbook on September 10, 2018.
Reception
Box office
Mary and the Witch's Flower grossed $1.5 million in the United States and Canada, and $30.8 million in other territories (including $27.6 million in Japan), for a worldwide total of $32.3 million.
In Japan, the film opened at second place, grossing ¥428 million ($3.9 million) during its opening weekend; this was an increase compared to Yonebayashi's previous film, When Marnie Was There (2014), which had grossed ¥378.86 million in its first weekend.
In the United States, the film held a special Thursday night preview on January 18, 2018 where it grossed $1.2 million from 573 theaters. It then stayed at 161 theaters over the weekend and grossed $329,097, bringing its four-day gross to $1.5 million.
Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 87% based on 61 reviews, and an average rating of 6.9/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Mary and the Witch's Flower honors its creator's Studio Ghibli roots with a gentle, beautifully animated story whose simplicity is rounded out by its entrancing visuals." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 73 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Shelia O'Malley of rogerebert.com gave the film a rating of three stars out of four and stated that "the total lack of inner conflict in Mary might be why Mary and the Witch's Flower-as transportive and entertaining as it is-feels a little slight". However, Moira Macdonald of The Seattle Times noted that although the film "isn't quite a masterpiece" and "the screenplay needs a polish", she concluded that the film is "a joy to look at: a visual adventure, and a continuation of a remarkable legacy".
References
External links
- Official website (in Japanese)
- Official website (in English)
- Mary and the Witch's Flower on IMDb
- Mary and the Witch's Flower at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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