Mark Reviews Movies: THE HOUSE OF THE LOST ON THE CAPE

The House of the Lost on the Cape, Eleven Arts

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 7, 2022

Three different generations—a young girl, a young woman, and an older lady—come together by chance, out of tragedy and loneliness, in The House of the Lost on the Cape. Director Shinya Kawatsura's animated adaptation of Sachiko Kashiwaba's novel begins as a thoughtful and compassionate look at the forming of a happenstance family. It's simple and quiet, made up of small moments and gestures of kindness, but by the end, the story has so transformed that it's about the adoptive granny battling a giant sea serpent.

To be fair, that shift isn't too unexpected, since the eponymous house is a magical residence. The distinction of scope between a house that can form ice cubes upon request and a monstrous sea creature that feeds on people's fears, though, is a wide one. Kawatsura and screenwriter Reiko Yoshida don't find a way to connect these vastly disparate ideas.

About half of the story follows Yui (voice of Mana Ashida), an older teenager who has run away from an abusive father, and Hiyroi (voice of Sari Awano), a girl whose parents were killed in a car accident, who is the only survivor of other relatives during a recent earthquake and tsunami, and who no longer speaks because of the trauma. The pair meet in a relief shelter, and after noticing that the two are alone, an older woman named Kiwa (voice of Shinobu Otake) claims to be their grandmother. The three make a home of a mysterious, remote house sitting atop a plateau surrounded by the sea.

While there is the mystically helpful house in the backdrop, most of this section of the tale has the three supporting each other, both by helping out with chores and emotionally (While Yui awaits the moment she suspects she'll have to run away and Hiyori is reminded of her parents' funeral at practice for an upcoming festival, "Granny" tells them stories to ease their troubles). It's a solid foundation for a grounded tale about lost people finding each other and becoming an unlikely family together, but the filmmakers, unfortunately, don't seem to trust the strength of that material.

Instead, we're suddenly introduced to various creatures and spirits, whom Kiwa knows from her own travels and dealings with isolation. Meanwhile, the stories she tells the girls—of ancient evils and people fighting against them—aren't calming allegories but foreshadowing for the threat that's looming over this area.

The sea serpent, which has been separated into smaller snakes that feed on people's misery, is an obvious metaphor for what these three characters and everyone else are experiencing in the shadow of loss. Compared to the strength of the characters and their budding bond, its existence in this story feels simplistic and redundant. The House of the Lost on the Cape is a fine story without the fantasy elements, but with them, it's a completely different and less successful one.

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