A Letter to Momo

The newly-released anime feature "A Letter to Momo" is what you'd call a "magic realist" film. That's a term that's been thrown around so much that it's basically lost all meaning, but it tends to boil down to this: Stories about small-scale conflicts, set in intimate settings, and sensationalized with spiritual, otherworldly, or even hallucinogenic details.

"Momo" fits the bill. It concerns a young girl whose father dies in a boating accident right after she got into a fight with him. She's left only with a letter he didn't complete -- the only text on it is "dear Momo" -- and eventually her mother packs up and moves the both of them to their late patriarch's old hometown.

That's where Momo meets three scampish goblins who may or may not have been sent from "the Above" by her father to watch over her. Concurrently, Momo's mother coughs a lot, which we all know is movie-code for impending tragedy. Throughout the film, Momo's moods are split: She gets depressed that she's being left home alone all day in a strange place, then she becomes agitated by the troublemaking goblins for a while. "Mom's out all day, and the house is full of goblins. Things are getting out of hand," Momo complains, and the film manages the not-insignificant accomplishment of convincing us that one concern is just as important as the other.

"Momo" is probably already sounding somewhat familiar. That's because the film -- which comes from director Hiroyuki Okiura and Production I.G. -- borrows a whole lot from the works of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. Even given that the films and artists are working out of similar conditions (the goblins here are consciously based on designs from the Edo period, from which Miyazaki has also found influence), the similarities are uncanny: "My Neighbor Totoro," also, is about a pre-teen girl with a sick mother who comes to love her new surroundings with the help of mystical friends only she can see. The climaxes of "Totoro" and "Momo" even match up. It's hardly plagiarism, but when you line "Momo"'s jagged edges up against the immaculate craft of "Totoro," the former film can't help but seem wanting.

That's not to say there's nothing worth seeing in this sort-of-but-not-really remake. Okiura, for one thing, is able to instill a catchy rhythm into the picture; it has an earthy vibe that it maintains quite successfully. There's one particularly fetching scene, where Momo is rushing home in the rain, and the film cuts to still images of other homes and areas of the town being poured down on. A few frames later, the movie catches up with Momo once more. It only lasts for a few seconds, but its the sort of atmospheric touch that can elevate an entire movie. (Backing up that touch, Okiura does an admirable job throughout the film using long shots to acquaint us with the geography of the town, which pays off in a late-in-the-film action sequence.)

Not all the coasting this movie does is good, though. Momo gets a romantic interest -- a young boy across the street -- whose characterization is generic to the point of being laughable. He drags the film to a screeching halt every time he ends up in the frame, because we don't know who the hell this boy is or why our girl would like him. (Never mind that there's no need for that subplot in a film that boils down to "Three Goblins and a Teenage Girl" anyway.) It's a sloppy storytelling move in an otherwise playful and enjoyable film. So while "Momo" doesn't have the emotional heft of Miyazaki's Ghibli films, as knock-offs go, it isn't half-bad. It's just goofy enough, and has just as much eye-candy, and it will keep you entertained for the full two-hour runtime. The film's a bit of a scamp itself.