The Boy and The Heron (Dubbed) (12A)

Animation wizard Hayao Miyazaki re-emerges after a decade with another strikingly beautiful, yet mournful tale of a young boy coming to terms with his mother’s death.

It’s the one Miyazaki came out of retirement to make, and it’s arguably one of his most personal. The backdrop is 1940s wartime Japan. The boy of the title is 12-year-old Mahito (Luca Padovan). Shortly before the main action takes place, Mahito loses his mother in a hospital fire after a bombing raid on Tokyo. The still grieving Mahito is forced to relocate to the country estate after his father remarries.

It also has another resident: a strange heron (Robert Pattinson) that seems to be taking an interest in Mahito. At the behest of this mysterious bird, Mahito enters a forbidden tower and finds himself drawn into a netherworld where timelines are knitted together. Fellow inhabitants of this world include Kiriko (Florence Pugh), a dashing sailor and fisherwoman who is skilled in magic, and the fire maiden Himi (Karen Fukuhara) and a community of giant man-eating parakeets. A slow-burn at first, this stunning film unfolds into a dimension hopping adventure