angeleno34

From the moment "Up on Poppy Hill" opens, scans its world in photographic panorama, and takes you into an ordinary Japanese kitchen where early-teen Umi is preparing a meal, you sense that this will not be like any Miyazaki film that you have ever seen. Still present is the flawless Studio Ghibli animation, but all traces of fantasy are gone. Instead the film grabs your heartstrings and won't let go. It's a simple enough story, neither harrowing nor heartbreaking, but its telling is so rich and enveloping that you're quickly as close to it as if you were on the back of a careening bicycle with Umi. // Young children will be entertained by the wonderful animation and may have questions to ask about the differences between how Umi lives her daily life in 1963 Japan and how they themselves live. Anyone older than about nine will grasp the full depth of the story and will enter it through its richness and detail. If you are empathetic at all your eyes will be wet from recognition, and, often enough, from joy. See this film and hope for more like it from the new Miyazaki generation. (Note: This review is for the English-dubbed, non-subtitled version that opened in Los Angeles in late March, 2013.)

What is it like to be a little girl, flown out of China with some sense of past home, place and life, then adopted and raised as an American in a secure home with love and good parenting? This skillfully-made documentary puts you in the shoes--no, the skins--of four young women who, in the words of one, are like bananas, yellow outside and white inside. They are all bright, well-educated, hard-working, and grounded, but something is still missing in their lives.

Just what should China mean to them? Is it the tiny but tantalizing possibility of finding a birth parent, with the surprises that might bring--a story that has been told many times? Is it the sense of a place where they visibly fit in? Is it the need to share their feelings with other kids like themselves? And what of the lingering feeling that, before they were adopted, they were rejected? You will experience all these things alongside these young women, as they travel to Europe and China, grow, and open up like flowers. Is it enough to feel Chinese, or must she feel like a Dai (minority) person because she looks like one? Where does that lead her? What does it feel like to be in the stark orphanage that she dimly recalls? And what does she feel when she sees a bright little girl like she was, but trapped in a box in that orphanage because of a disability that could be treated?

I agree with Los Angeles Times reviewer Kenneth Turan, whose professional review I commend to you, that only a stone would not be moved by this film.