Christmas day has past, but we still have one more weekend in 2023. Can you believe that we are only 93 people shy of the 8000 mark for people attending the Falkon Theatre in 2023? Hopefully we get over 100 people for this weekend’s The Boy and the Heron, because I would love to reach that goal.
Celebrated Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki came out of retirement to deliver this Alice in Wonderland-esque fantasy about a young boy coming to terms with his mother’s death during the second world war, illuminating his grief with dazzlingly surreal visuals that are a joy to behold.
Pick your film critic, they all loved The Boy and the Heron. Richard Crouse (who we see reviewing movies on CTV news) gave it 4 stars.
Imaginative and visually beautiful, “The Boy and the Heron,” a new film from Japanese animator, filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, is a unique look at life, death and friendship. – Richard Crouse
We will be playing the English version of the film and the voice actors in this movie are a list of top Hollywood stars. The voices include: Christian Bale, Dave Bautista, Gemma Chan, Willem Dafoe and my person favorite, Mark Hamill. There is also Robert Pattison and Florence Pugh in the movie.
The film is rated PG-13, but I looked up what people felt is age appropriate for this animated feature. Most of the reviews I read, said that it might be too scary for kids under 9 years old. However, this does depend on the maturity of your child.
The Runtime for this movie is 2 hours and 4 minutes.
If you’ve never seen a Hayao Miyazaki film, or any film from Studio Ghibli, I would highly recommend giving this one a try. Watch it for the incredible story, or the visual mastery of hand-drawn animation. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.
The Boy and the Heron plays this Friday – Sunday (Dec 29-31). Showtimes on Friday and Saturday are at 8:00PM and the Sunday show is at 2:00PM. See you there!