Film Review – From Up on Poppy Hill

The animation masters at Studio Ghibli are well-versed in the realms of
fantasy, routinely offering odd creatures and faraway lands to
adventurous viewers (recent efforts include “Ponyo” and “The Secret
World of Arrietty”). “From Up on Poppy Hill” returns the filmmaking
collective to reality, avoiding the fantastical and the bizarre to focus
on a tender story of human connection, feeling out a delicate mood of
thinly veiled emotions while expectedly gorgeous animation supports the
characterizations. “From Up on Poppy Hill” might initially come off as
inconsequential, yet it actually isolates what Studio Ghibli does best:
constructing an evocative landscape of vivid personalities scrambling
around a compelling conflict dusted with idiosyncrasy and visual poetry. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com