Wolfwalkers (2020)

Directed by Tomm Moore & Ross Stewart. Starring (voices) Honor Kneafsey, Eva Whittaker, Sean Bean, Simon McBurney, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Tommy Tiernan. [PG]

Final installment in Moore’s “Irish Folklore Trilogy” turns its attention upon a willful, free-spirited girl named Robyn (Kneafsey) whose 17th-century village is under threat by a pack of wolves from the forest they’re trying to clear. When she ventures into the woods herself, however, she discovers Mebh (Whittaker), a young “Wolfwalker”—a person who shapeshifts into the body of a wolf while sleeping—and learns that they’re upset by the disappearance of Mebh’s mother, captured in wolf form by the village’s domineering lord protector. Gorgeously-designed animation continues to improve from The Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea, driven by an uncluttered narrative that navigates among many familiar tropes, from the well-meaning but close-minded parent not believing the child to a cute animal sidekick, but makes (most of them) feel fresh again through tone, style, and earnestness. Suffers from some repetition—at least one too many times do we hear loud arguments over whether the wolves should be harmed or left alone—but also radiates with far more beauty and wisdom than one typically encounters in feature-length animation or folk/historical allegories. Directors Moor and Stewart received story credit, while the screenplay is attributed again to Will Collins, the scribe on Sea.

81/100