Enchanting goldfish princess Ponyo

 To be honest, my kids weren’t that keen on seeing the movie Ponyo. “So a fish wants to be a person,” said Mr 8. “Sounds dumb.”
“I wanna see the hamster movie,” sulked Miss 6. (She meant G-Force). So I plied them with popcorn, and dragged them along. And you know what? From the moment the movie started, the kids were mesmerised.

Brought up on a diet of western flicks, they were immediately taken with animation legend Hayao Miyazaki’s gorgeous visual feast. Ponyo was like a storybook come to life.
Part of the movie’s appeal is that, like so much of the animation legend’s work, it engages adults as well as kids.

So unexpectedly, I too, was drawn to the story of the precocious goldfish princess Ponyo (voiced by a Noah Cyrus), who meets a five-year-old boy Sōsuke (Frankie Jonas), and is instantly smitten.
However, her magician father, Fujimoto – a David Bowie-like character with a hatred for ‘disgusting humans’ – is horrified. He calls his wave spirits to return Ponyo to him.

Sosuke’s loving but flawed Mum Lisa (Tina Fey) tries in vain to cheer up the heartbroken little boy, while a fiesty Ponyo declares she loves Sosuke and wants to become human so she can be with him.

A startled Fiujimoto decides to seek help from Ponyo’s mother, a wise sea goodess voiced by Cate Blanchett. But while he’s away, the mischievous Ponyo uses magic to make herself human and runs away to find her friend.
Her actions cause an imbalance in the world which whips up a giant storm – the scenes of a joyous Ponyo running along the waves to catch up with Sosuke (trapped in the car with his speeding mother), are priceless.

Lisa is surprisingly accepting of the new arrival - "Life is mysterious and amazing”, she says, before marvelling at the little fish-girl’s delight in discovering the delight of honey tea, noodles and ham!

Loosely based on Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid, Sosuke eventually passes a test, which allows Ponyo to stay human and live with him forever, which conveniently restores world order as well.
Okay, the plot is ridiculous, but let’s be honest, what kids’ movie isn’t? And it’s unpredictable and magical too. It’s disconcerting seeing western faces and hearing American accents while the setting and most of the names are Japanese, however that’s trademark Miyazaki. And I laughed when Lisa told her five-year-old and his new friend to stay home alone in the middle of the storm, while she went to help out at the retirement home where she worked. In the real world, she’d have child protection authorities onto her in minutes!

But in all, Ponyo is an enchanting film, which should appeal to kids of all ages (and their parents).
Mr 8 summed it up best: “I didn’t think it would be my kind of movie, but it was actually really good.”
And Miss 6 immediately asked if we could go and see it again!
High praise indeed!

Bronwyn Marquardt, October 2009