This is a movie for patient viewers, but trust that you will be richly rewarded.

| Feb 20, 2019

There's enough wisdom to be found in this engaging tale for a trip to the theatre. Whether to take the whole family is up to parents to decide.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 20, 2018

Merits comparison to works of similar relevance and poetic ambitions, like Shoplifters and Roma, masterworks that share its inquiries about familial ties, parental insecurities, and the inescapable pull of the past.

| Nov 30, 2018

Like Hayao Miyazaki, whose mantle Hosoda is often considered to be on an unofficial short list to pick up, Hosoda tells this child's story at a child's eye level, and the diversions feel part and parcel of that point of view.

| Nov 30, 2018

Expands into a lyrical realm that is both very Japanese and entirely universal.

| Nov 30, 2018

The latest gem from Japanese anime master Mamoru Hosoda concerns a little boy's conflict with his baby sister. It may be the animator's smallest film, but it stands tall. You'll be enchanted.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Nov 30, 2018

Mirai doesn't really speak for young viewers, just down to them.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 30, 2018

The painstaking animation becomes more and more elaborate, culminating in a child's-eye view of a bustling train station and a bullet train transformed into a demonic carriage for lost children.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 30, 2018

Without any preamble, Kun's courtyard refuge turns into a kind of magic zone where no-limits fantasy and recognizable reality unapologetically intertwine in a way that is quintessentially Hosoda.

| Nov 30, 2018

Hosoda and his team at Studio Chizu match the weighty narrative issues - parents in the audience would be well advised to bring a tissue or two - with enthralling and inventive animation that only serves to up the overall emotional impact of Mirai.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 29, 2018

In the best possible way, "Mirai" feels like the dream of a very wise child.

| Nov 29, 2018

The fabric of the fantasy world depicted in the film lacks the cohesion of its central theme about appreciating one's place in a family tree.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 26, 2018

There's a lot of narrative jump-rope to get through, but it's still enchanting and brave.

| Original Score: B | Nov 21, 2018

Mirai is admirable as a creative experiment by a popular director who's demonstrably still restless.

| Original Score: 7 | Nov 16, 2018

Mirai definitely puts Hosoda in the Japanese industry's top league, showing a similar spirit of high-blown romanticism as Your Name (2016), anime's high-water mark in recent years.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 2, 2018

Tempering its flights of fancy with moments of whimsical humour and kid's-eye realism, this thoughtful treatise on growing pains reveals a realist side of Japanimation that's all too rarely seen.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 1, 2018

Mirai bathes ordinary family life in a beautiful new light.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 1, 2018

An ambitious, one-of-a-kind family fantasy.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 1, 2018

What is it with this country? They don't need the fatuous dimension-whizzing and CGI hyperbolism that is a growing part of western animation. They just need, here, kids and parents and growing pains we all recognise.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 31, 2018

A crucial scene at a train station ... is almost heartstopping, but the film is never so intimidating that it won't charm audiences from Kun's age and up.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 31, 2018