Review: Ponyo

Dir. Hayao Hiyazaki (2008)

When the name Miyazaki is brought up, most people familiar with his work automatically recall the incredible bath house from Spirited away, the mechanical caretakers from castle in the sky, or the gigantic rampaging insects from Nausicaa.  Thoughts probably don’t often stray to mermaids, enter screen right, Ponyo!

A loose adaptation of the fairy tale, The Little Mermaid, Ponyo follows a redheaded toddler with a penchant for ham, loud opinions, and the ability to grow very quickly upon drinking human blood. Yeah, you probably won’t find an animated mermaid movie more different than Disney Animation’s Little Mermaid. Oddly enough though, Ponyo really isn’t even the main character in her own movie. The heart of the film centers on a little human boy named Saske as he struggles to come to grips with the fact that his father’s job requires him to be at sea a lot. The movie contrasts animal life of the sea with human life on land and actively subverts the stereotype of humans as being the evil destroyers of nature that one often finds in Miyazaki’s work. 

The moralizing romantic tone of the original fairy tale is jettisoned in favor of light, family-based melodrama with Ponyo’s arrival serving as a catalyst for Saske and his mother to grow as people, and for Ponyo’s parents to explore their ingrained perceptions of humanity.

Unlike much of Miyazaki’s other work, there’s no real bite to this story. It’s aiming for a very, very young audience and older viewers may find it to be less engaging for them than say, something like Princess Mononoke. There are no real villains to speak of, no action sequences really. There’s a little peril when a flood sweeps into town, but the majority of the film is a quiet, sensitive affair. It displays a wild, yet borderline incoherent, imagination visually yet in terms of story, the narrative doesn’t have much structure to speak of. It floats along, content to occasionally move the story, but it’s not as tight as some of the studio’s other efforts and to some people the ending may feel like it comes out of nowhere.

Ponyo herself presents a bit of a problem, while she is a great character and is fascinating to watch, she can yell a lot, she’s very demanding and the English dubbed voice actor’s high pitched shouts can grate on the ears a bit after a while. The movie also feels very long, the story is far too slight to really drive the hour and forty minute runtime. While young children may be entranced, adults may start checking their watches near the end. That being said, Ponyo is probably the best entry point into Studio Ghibli’s catalog for very young children.

Should you see Ponyo? If a fresh, innocent revamp of The Little Mermaid, with gorgeous art, a relaxed pace, and no content issues to speak of for young children sounds like the perfect ocean-side view to you, then Ponyo might be right up your alley. However, if the gorgeous art and whimsical charm isn’t enough to distract you from the reality that this is a film primarily aimed at toddlers, you might want to sail to sunnier seas.

-Josh Evans