Delayed Reaction: My Neighbor Totoro

The Pitch: Just let Miyazaki do what he wants. It will sound crazy when he describes it, but the final product will be great.

Two little girls find a magic creature living next door to them in their new house.

I don't get the diehard devotion people have to Miyazaki. If no one warned me, I never would've guessed that movies like Spirited Away or My Neighbor Totoro were the work of the master of Japanese animation: arguably the biggest name in cinema to come out of the country since Kurosawa. While I've enjoyed his movies, I haven't fallen hard for any of them. So, I always feel like I'm on the outside looking in with these movies. A bit like I am with Quinton Tarantino or Wes Anderson.

The key difference between Miyazaki and the other fillmakers than I don't "get" is that I can't deny the charm of the movies. Like, I have no idea why Totoro is an international icon, but I don't hate him the way that I hate the Minions. Finally seeing My Neighbor Totoro has filled in many blanks as far as visual references in other movies goes. People leave a lot of odes to Miyazaki in other pieces of pop culture.

My Neighbor Totoro is a sweet movie. The story isn't at all bombastic. Despite a ton of imagination on the screen throughout, it remains very grounded and sincere. I came across reviews that describe the story as more about 'situation' than 'plot', and I agree with that. It doesn't tell a more complete story than it needs to. The mother is sick at the beginning. She's still sick at the end. Maybe she'll get better, but the important thing in the movie is that the girls learn how to handle it at that moment. The dad is so impossibly nice that the young Disney Renaissance fan in me kept waiting for him to be tragically killed.

You know what? The more I'm talking about it, the more I'm convincing myself that this is a great movie. I'm still falling a little short of catching the "Miyazaki magic", but I appreciate a lot about this movie.

Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend