Matt W Cook

I was impressed with the humour and melancholy, and how they both fit so well together in a children’s movie that managed to get both the honest bitterness and sweetness of real life into a myth for our times.

Damn, that sounds good.

And it should, because it’s a beautiful movie. No, not a movie. I’d go so far as to call it a film. A film that accepts the starkest realities of loss and death, while still laughing once in a while and learning to live meaningfully without the things you wish you could keep.

Kubo is a one-eyed boy who takes care of his mother while earning a living storytelling in the marketplace. He’s good at stories, because he can make origami heroes and monsters fight when he plays his shamisen. Looks awesome. Everything is more or less great until he stays out too late one night and his scary aunts show up and try to steal his eye. From there, it’s myth-making at its finest.

Go watch it with your kids. Though there’s a scary skeleton or two, so be advised about that.