Movie Review: 'Earwig and the Witch' Not Your Father's Studio Ghibli Movie

Earwig and the Witch is a significant change of pace for the well known animation brand of Studio Ghibli. After decades of being defined by the grace and style of founder, Hiyao Miyazaki, the master’s retirement means new voices in the lead. One of those new voices is none other than the master’s own son, Goro Miyazaki. In his third directorial feature, Earwig and the Witch, Goro Miyazaki is among the first of Studio Ghibli’s stable to chart a new course for the company.

Earwig and the Witch is based on a children’s book by the late English novelist Diana Wynne Jones. It’s not the first book of Jones’ to inspire a Miyazaki either. Hiyao Miyazaki was inspired by Jones’ 1986 novel, Howl’s Moving Castle to make one of his finest works. Earwig and the Witch is certainly no Howl’s Moving Castle but it has its own sort of charm on a less ambitious scale.

Earwig and the Witch tells the story of a baby named Earwig (Taylor Paige Henderson) who is given up for adoption following an intriguing chase sequence involving a beautiful woman on a motorcycle being chased by people she claims are real life witches. The Matron of the orphanage doesn’t buy the Witch story but nevertheless takes to her new charge immediately. As she grows up, Earwig becomes the delight of the entire orphanage staff.

It is then quite sad when, after 10 years, a couple decides that they will adopt Earwig. Bella Yaga (Vanessa Marshall) and Mandrake(Richard E Grant) are a pair of weirdos who Earwig is quite suspicious of right off the bat. She’s right to be suspicious as Bella is a powerful witch and Mandrake is a terrifying, borderline demonic, warlock of seemingly unlimited power. Mandrake also has a particularly angry response to being disturbed, something Earwig is practically incapable of not doing.

Instead of being terrified by her new family however, Earwig is intrigued. Despite Bella Yaga’s bellowing nastiness and treating Earwig more like a low level employee than a daughter, Earwig thinks she can win the witch over. Earwig decides that she wants to learn how to be a witch and, one way or another, Bella Yaga is going to teach her. The Mandrake meanwhile, may be an easier ally to make than Earwig imagines.

Earwig and the Witch is an interesting experiment in animation. The movie has a glossy look more akin to the American style of computer animation than anything remotely reminiscent of the lovely moving watercolors style of the Master, Hiyao Miyazaki. That’s likely a function of Goro Miyazaki doing what he can to separate himself from his father’s style. It works, you definitely won’t mistake Earwig and the Witch for anything like a Hiyao Miyazaki movie.

That’s not a criticism, per se. I don’t want all animation to look like a Hiyao Miyazaki movie. But, I am also going to greatly miss the distinctive fashion of classic Miyazaki animation. The fact that his movies looked nothing like anything in American animation was a small part of what I loved about his work. That Earwig and the Witch has a rather American style to it makes the movie a little more generic than what you might expect from a Studio Ghibli movie.

That said, the charm of Earwig in the Witch is in the character of Earwig and her adventure in the world of magic and the world where witches exist. There is an element of the classic orphan story of Annie in Earwig and the Witch, minus the curls and the singing. The story tension comes not from Earwig adjusting to swanky new surroundings however but rather in how we are waiting for this story’s equivalent to Daddy Warbucks to come around and rescue our plucky little heroine.

That’s where Earwig and the Witch takes a strange turn. We know who Earwig’s mother is and we are waiting for her to come back and give Earwig a new home. I won’t say whether or not that happens but I will tell you that the movie ends in such an abrupt fashion that I am not sure exactly how any of it played out in the end. I don’t mind a movie being only 80 some minutes but when a movie feels like its second act is ending and then just ends, it’s weird.

Earwig and the Witch ends in such a fashion that I was baffled. I think the ending made sense but the whiplash of choices needed to turn the movie from what seemed like the start of the third act to the end of the movie is jarring, to say the least. There were 10 minutes left in the movie and I was confounded how they would end the movie, not because the film is clever or suspenseful but because there didn’t appear to be enough time to resolve what had just happened.

That’s not to say that I disliked Earwig and the Witch. It’s not a bad kids flick. The animation is distinct if not distinguished and the story is cute and engaging. It just feels very unfinished, rushed and unsatisfying in the end. I can recommend Earwig and the Witch for parents looking for something cute to watch with the kids. However, if you are looking for Goro Miyazaki to carry on his dad’s legacy, you will be gravely disappointed in Earwig and the Witch.