A marriage of “dazzling spectacle, high-octane action and social commentary”, this animated film from Japan received a 14-minute standing ovation when it premiered at Cannes, said Tara Brady in The Irish Times. The story revolves around Suzu, a 17-year-old high school student who’s unremarkable but for her extraordinary singing voice – which she can’t bring herself to use in public. At school, she isn’t a big hitter socially, until she signs up to “U”, a virtual world “pitched somewhere between Instagram and The Fifth Element” that allows its users to live as idealised avatars.
In this metaverse, Suzu is reborn as Belle, “a pink-haired, singing beauty” who becomes an overnight sensation. The film’s best scenes are not the “riotous tableaux” that play under her J-pop ballads, however, but “the blushmaking adolescent exchanges, the family concerns”, and even, in a late plot twist, a powerful (but delicately handled) dramatisation of childhood abuse.
This finely observed, gorgeously animated sci-fi fairy tale is one of director Mamoru Hosoda’s best to date, said Robbie Collin in The Daily Telegraph. Long “enthralled by abstract digital spaces”, he has created here a twinkling metaverse that “overawes you through sheer volume of lunatic detail”. And though the plot owes much to Beauty and the Beast, the film’s exploration of “our online-offline double lives” is entirely fresh.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Belle’s central message is a powerful one, said Simran Hans in The Observer – that the closer our online personas capture who we really are, “the more powerful” they become. All in all, this is anime to swell the heart.
-
Is a market crash around the corner?Talking Points Observers see echoes of 1929
-
Frankenstein is alive, the Alabama prison system is exposed and Rose Byrne goes full Crazy Mom in October moviesthe week recommends This month’s new releases include ‘Frankenstein,’ ‘The Alabama Solution’ and ‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’
-
Madagascar president in hiding, refuses to resignSpeed Read Andry Rajoelina fled the country amid Gen Z protests and unrest
-
The delightful, smutty world of Jilly CooperIn the Spotlight Millions mourn the ‘Mrs Kipling of sex’
-
Lee Miller at the Tate: a ‘sexy yet devastating’ showThe Week Recommends The ‘revelatory’ exhibition tells the photographer’s story ‘through her own impeccable eye’
-
6 eye-catching rounded homesFeature Featuring a central spiral staircase in Michigan and a Balinese-style estate with ocean views in Hawaii
-
A House of Dynamite: a ‘nail-biting’ nuclear-strike thrillerThe Week Recommends ‘Virtuoso talent’ Kathryn Bigelow directs a ‘fast-paced’ and ‘tense’ ‘symphony of dread’
-
The Finest Hotel in Kabul: a ‘haunting’ history of modern AfghanistanThe Week Recommends Lyse Doucet’s sensitively written work traces over 50 years of Kabul’s ‘Inter-Con’ hotel
-
The Smashing Machine: Dwayne Johnson is ‘magnetic’ in gritty biopicThe Week Recommends The wrestler-turned-Hollywood-actor takes on the role of troubled UFC champion Mark Kerr
-
Shadow Ticket: Thomas Pynchon’s first novel in over a decadeThe Week Recommends Zany whodunnit about a private eye in 1930s Milwaukee could be the 88-year-old author’s ‘last hurrah’
-
Southern barbecue: This year’s top threeFeature A weekend-only restaurant, a 90-year-old pitmaster, and more
