Kiki’s Delivery Service

Composite Score: 84.2

Starring: Minami Takayama/Kirsten Dunst, Rei Sakuma/Phil Hartman, Kappei Yamaguchi/Matthew Lawrence, Keiko Toda/Tress MacNeille, Mieko Nobusawa/Barbara Goodson, and Kôichi Miura/Jeff Bennett

Director: Hayao Miyazaki

Writer: Hayao Miyazaki

Genres: Animation, Family, Fantasy, Coming-of-Age

MPAA Rating: G

Box Office: $10.28 million worldwide

Why should you Watch This Film?

                Kiki’s Delivery Service is Hayao Miyazaki’s film adaptation of Eiko Kadono’s children’s novel of the same name about a thirteen-year-old witch who settles in a city by the sea to undergo her traditional year of training. The film follows Kiki as she leaves home with her black cat Jiji and her mother’s flying broom to hone her skills as a witch by helping the people of a new town/city. Her desire to see the sea leads her to settle in a coastal city and offer her services as a flying delivery girl to its citizens. The story explores the relationships she forms, her many adventures in delivering various goods, and her need to establish her own brand of magic separate from that of her own family. Miyazaki’s animation, the poignant coming-of-age tale at its heart, and the memorable characters have made it one of the most memorable of the filmmaker’s many works.

Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?

                Kiki’s Delivery Service is a deeply character-driven narrative feature, meaning that its plot takes a strong back seat to the development of Kiki and her relationships. For this reason, the film can feel a bit more like an episodic journey (three or four episodes long) crammed into a single hour-and-forty-three-minute film. We end up left with a plot whose climactic conflict doesn’t fully manifest until five minutes before the climax, giving it an odd sense of pacing, if you focus on the action as the driving narrative force, which most audiences will tend towards. In truth, Kiki is an animated coming-of-age character study whose plot(s) serve the purpose of giving the central character room to grow and mature. That’s not going to be everyone’s favorite filmmaking choice, and even fans of Miyazaki’s other works might find this one more difficult to engage with because it is so character-focused and even more villain-less than Ponyo or The Wind Rises, maybe even than Totoro depending on how you interpret everything.

So wait, why should you Watch This Film?

                Obviously, Miyazaki’s beautiful animation goes without speaking, and it comes through in a more grounded way here than most of his other films, but no less beautifully. If you get nothing else from watching a Miyazaki film, you’ll figure out that the man loves flight and flying things/creatures, and of all his films, even the two specifically about planes, Kiki’s Delivery Service might be the most flight-focused. Kiki’s “only” magical skill that she can use to help out in her new town is her ability to fly on her broom, providing plenty of opportunities for the filmmaker to put her in the air with birds and planes and other witches and even zeppelins. It’s Miyazaki’s ode to the concept of flight, and beautiful to behold.

                The film also does a really good job of telling a coming-of-age story that is about more than just the general concept of experiencing “adult” things and becoming more mature. Kiki’s story focuses on her magical flight and its monetization and her eventual loss of inspiration because she forgets why she loved flying in the first place. It’s a poignant message that remains resonant even for adults, who experience burnout at even higher rates than teens in many cases. The reminder that, if you love something but have lost that spark, it’s okay to recenter and figure out what it was that you loved about it in the first place. Flying is a passion for Kiki because it’s something that she can do that sets her apart and gives her a unique perspective on the world. When she becomes so focused on pleasing others with her craft and seeing it turned to machinery and commodity, she loses focus (and the ability to fly briefly). Her “vacation” in the woods with her artist friend gives her that perspective shift she needs to return to her passion more inspired than ever.

                Miyazaki’s coming-of-age film about a witch who delivers things on a broom achieves its level of greatness through the filmmaker’s consistently excellent animation and a poignant message about passion and commodification that is relevant for all audiences. Even with a story that focuses so little on plot and so much on character, it is a rewarding watch with plenty to enjoy. This film is currently streaming on Max if you’d like to watch it soon.