-Written by John Cajio.
The Cat Returns manages to be another positive feather in the cap in Studio Ghibli’s vaunted oeuvre. While it does not rise to the same dizzying heights of its dozen or so predecessors, the film moves at a brisk pace, does not overstay its welcome, possesses an excellent score that exceeds the film, and has a relatable lead character.
Written by Reiko Yoshida and directed by Hiroyuki Morita as a spinoff from 1995’s Whisper of the Heart, The Cat Returns features Haru (Chizuru Ikewaki/Anne Hathaway), a teenaged school girl who rescues a cat strangely carrying a small gift box from certain death by truck. The cat, it turns out, is Prince Lune (Takayuki Yamada/Andrew Bevis) of the mysterious Cat Kingdom, and he promises to repay her for saving his life before disappearing. However innocent Prince Lune’s promises may have been, his father, the Cat King (Tetsurō Tanba/Tim Curry) has other, much more permanent and devious plans for Haru. She learns of the Cat Bureau and seeks their aid. Lead by the exceedingly suave cat Baron Humbert von Gikkingen (Yoshihiko Hakamada/Cary Elwes), the large and brutish cat Muta (Tetsu Watanabe/Peter Boyle), and the crow Toto (Yōsuke Saitō/Elliot Gould), they promise to help Haru in their own unique ways.
Following on the heels of Spirited Away, Studio Ghibli’s monumental landmark film that released a year earlier in 2001, The Cat Returns had a tough uphill road to climb here. It manages to land on its feet (unlike Muta in one unfortunate scene for him). Fortunately, The Cat Returns makes no effort to try to emulate anything from Spirited Away, and I think that’s at least part of why it’s as successful as it manages to be.
Art design in The Cat Returns is much simpler and oftentimes cruder than what we’ve seen in previous Studio Ghibli entries. But it is consistent with itself, and still manages to be superior to what lesser animation studios of the era were producing at their best. Notably, this simple art design allows for a lot of expression in the face of Haru in particular, as well as all of the various cats. The expressions are warm, honest, and funny.
Haru is a relatable teenager. She wakes up late for school, fawns over boys, and generally has typical teenage girl problems. She comes by them all pretty honestly. Until she rescues a cat and her world gets turned upside down. Then she’s constantly flirting mostly between panic, sadness, and anger. All realistic emotions for the circumstances that she finds herself in. Her growth over the course of the film is believable as well. If there is a page that The Cat Returns does take from Spirited Away, it’s that we find ourselves rooting for Haru in much the same way we rooted for Chihiro in the previous film.
The music provided by composer Yuji Nomi is outstanding, and frequently makes the film’s action much more epic than it has any right to be. For the most part, Nomi channels the Masters of 19th-Century Romanticism to create sweeping melodies and highly charged themes throughout the film. Oftentimes, I found myself thinking how much a particular cue reminded me of Wagner (in particular), or Brahms, or Dvořák, or Tchaikovsky, or Mahler, to name a few. I don’t think he lifted any music directly from these composers (or others), but the resemblance is striking (and even if he did the works by these composers have long been in the public domain; nor is it uncommon for composers to sneak quotes from their own sources of inspiration into their own works). He effectively took Romantic-style melodies and applied modern compositional ideas to them to create a striking score that massively elevates the film.
The film is only seventy-five minutes long. It’s the shortest film in Studio Ghibli’s catalog by one minute. Its brevity is one of its greatest strengths. The story, while enjoyable for what it is, is ultimately a shallow and vacuous affair. It’s fun to see Haru panic as her new reality sets in (and sympathize with her when she becomes depressed about it), and it’s fun to see Muta straight up brawl with a bunch of militarized cats, and the heroics that the Baron Humbert von Gikkingen performs without so much as getting a speck of dust on his impeccably fitted and pressed long-tailed suit are always impressive. But at the end of the day, this is the kind of film to idly put on while doing housework. Any longer and it would start to drag. The filmmakers wisely knew to keep things brief.
The Cat Returns is a film that mostly does not suck. A relatable main character, excellent music, a brisk pace, and a brief duration overcome an ultimately shallow plot.
Directed by Hiroyuki Morita.
Written by Reiko Yoshia.
Starring Chizuru Ikewaki/Anne Hathaway, Yoshihiko Hakamada/Cary Elwes, Tetsu Watanabe/Peter Boyle, Yōsuke Saitō/Elliot Gould, Tetsurō Tanba/Tim Curry, Takayuki Yamada/Andrew Bevis, etc.
7/10 = WATCH IT FOR FREE (IT MOSTLY DOES NOT SUCK)
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