Studio Ghibli, the revered Japanese house of lushly animated dreams, has enjoyed something of a protracted farewell. It’s more than two years since it announced its creative hiatus, with co-founders Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata having made their respective final films. But the lovely When Marnie Was There (Studiocanal, U) is, to all intents and purposes, Ghibli’s official farewell. Directed by the nowhere-near-retired Hiromasa Yonebayashi, this gentle, supernaturally tinged tale of young female companionship doesn’t seem as much a work of artistic closure as, say, Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises, but it’s a suitably wistful, whispery note to go out on.
The bond at its centre, between a lonely orphaned teen and the radiant, ethereally elusive girl who lives across the water, walks a gossamer line between friendship and romance. Though there’s an unearthly streak to the narrative, this is one of the studio’s most honestly human stories, run through with conflicted, bittersweet emotion.
The prospect of losing Ghibli’s subtle, serene brand of children’s storytelling is all the sadder when its latest is viewed beside Disney’s Alice Through the Looking Glass (Disney, PG), a nightmarish puree of corporate formula, literary misinterpretation and secondhand quirk that, almost impressively, outstrips Tim Burton’s 2010 predecessor for sheer antic ugliness. Burton’s take on Lewis Carroll was already smug and smoggy and over-designed. James Bobin’s sequel is more airless still, muddling Carrollian whimsy with more turgid science fiction conceits and doubling down on the queasy CGI and nuclear colour palette.
It’s about as grim as major studio film-making can get these days, though Mother’s Day (Lionsgate, 12) at least wants in on that conversation. An unfortunate swansong for the late Garry Marshall, closing out his trilogy of holiday-themed ensemble schmaltzfests, this blank greeting card of a film distinguishes itself from the others with particularly noxious streaks of misogyny and racism, not redeemed by such moments of emotional catharsis as Jennifer Aniston learning that a mother’s love is as eternal as a clown’s handkerchief. It arrives on DVD seven months too late for Mother’s Day, though there won’t ever be a good time for it.
Compared with these two, Jodie Foster’s Money Monster (Sony, 15) is a model of capability, though not quite as scarringly memorable. A hostage thriller with a side dish of defanged media satire, which sees a glossy TV finance show hijacked by a disenfranchised viewer, the film aims for jaded Trump-era topicality, but could hardly feel more comfortingly 90s in its styling.
The fan cult of Kristen Stewart is a powerful one, so when a film of hers skips cinemas, you sense something is amiss. Sadly, Equals (Icon, 12) is a wide miss indeed. A gleamingly styled but wholly misconceived sci-fi romance from Drake Doremus, the Next Big Thing lustre he earned with Sundance winner Like Crazy now a bit dulled, this junior-league Gattaca knock-off appealingly matches Stewart with Nicholas Hoult. But it is scuppered by the wispy illogic of its fantasy premise: a dystopia where all feelings have been outlawed. You won’t feel much watching it, though that’s hardly the point.
A similar tenor of low-key family melodrama is on offer in both The Daughter (Metrodome, 15) and Departure (Peccadillo, 15). The former is a fine-tuned Australian twist on Ibsen’s The Wild Duck, marked by sharp, tart performances and a keenly evoked rural milieu. The latter is an affecting but slightly precious coming-out tale, centred on a British teen and his weary mother as they pack up their house (and, with it, lost parts of their lives) in the south of France. The week’s documentary pick is Jim: The James Foley Story (Dogwoof, 15), a portrait of the Isis-slain American photojournalist assembled with palpable affection and dedication by friends and family. It’s far more emotive than analytical, but hits hard on those terms.
Finally, with The Blue Room, Mathieu Amalric’s short, sour, razor-shaved adaptation of the Georges Simenon mystery, having glided swiftly from cinemas to the exclusive online domain of Mubi.com, the arthouse streaming outlet is marking the occasion with a mini-festival of lesser-seen Amalric vehicles. It’s a welcome showcase for the Frenchman’s singularly shaggy gifts, albeit a mixed bag. Viewers can find out for themselves why Arnaud Desplechin’s Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian, a starched dual-character study of a Native American second world war veteran and his patient shrink, never saw the light of day in the UK, though Nicolas Klotz’s Heartbeat Detector remains a sinuous, cerebral corporate thriller. Amalric’s 1990 directorial debut, the 20-minute you-can’t-go-home-again tale Sans rires, serves as a tenderly melancholic chaser.
