★★★★½ Favorite line: “You don’t have to be good at being a mother. You just have to be there.” ⚠️ Content warnings: Death of a parent (on-screen), childbirth, war violence (bloodless but intense), emotional abandonment, themes of child mortality (by aging, not violence). Would you like a shorter version (e.g., for a quick Letterboxd review text box) or a spoiler-free recommendation blurb?
Also, be warned: the first 20 minutes are dense with fantasy terminology (Iorph, Renato, Hibiol, etc.). Stick with it. The worldbuilding isn’t the point — the people are. “I cried so hard during the final 15 minutes that my roommate knocked on my door to ask if I was okay. I was not okay. I will never be okay.” — @animatedtears , ★★★★½ “Mari Okada really said ‘What if immortality, but the curse is watching your children die’ and then made it somehow the most tender and hopeful movie about motherhood ever. Unfair.” — @weepywitch , ★★★★★ “This is the ‘Grave of the Fireflies’ of motherhood. Bring three tissues. Actually bring a towel.” — @mechastriver , ★★★★ “Leilia deserved her own movie. Justice for Leilia.” — @renatofan42 , ★★★★ “I watched this with my mom. Big mistake. Huge. We both sobbed in the theater parking lot for 20 minutes.” — @arimother , ★★★★★ 📋 Log entry example (as if from a Letterboxd user diary)
What follows is not a fantasy war epic, though dragons and armies clash. It is a quiet, devastating chronicle of motherhood, time, and farewell. Maquia raises the boy, Ariel, as he grows from toddler to adolescent to man, while she remains frozen in youth. She learns to sew, to cook, to cry, to let go. And he learns that some mothers never get old — only left behind.
— ★★★★½ Top 250 Narrative Feature Films — #112
Yes (3rd time)
If you have ever loved someone who grew up and away from you — child, parent, or friend — this film will find the crack in your heart and pour itself inside.