A Letter to Momo

Hiroyuki Okiura's A Letter to Momo is a Japanese-animated theatrically-released 2011 feature film with a folkloric feel. After her scientist-father's accidental death, adolescent Momo relocates with her mother to her grandparents' coastal village, where she is wracked with melancholy and suffers from guilt over the fact that her last interaction with her dad was a bitter argument (about his workaholic ways). Gradually and unnervingly, Momo realizes that she is being followed by three goblin-like entities that only she can perceive. Incarnated from an old sketchbook of feudal-Japanese mythology, the friendly but grotesque and ravenously hungry beasts are a scowling giant, a wide-mouthed humanoid (looking like Don Knott's Incredible Mr. Limpet), and a quiet Gollum-type creature. The trio explain that in order to atone for their olden-days crimes (mostly eating people) they have been reassigned to do good deeds in the spirit realm. Their current mission: achieve closure between grieving Momo and her late father. Although the storyline occasionally backslides into formula, the elegant hand-drawn animation sparkles in this engaging film. Recommended. (C. Cassady)