Kubo and the Two Strings is a Damn Masterpiece

I am an emotionally susceptible person. I have been wracked with such loud, echoing sobs during movies, movies like About Time and Finding Dory, that my wife has been deeply embarrassed to be in my company. At About Time I cried so hard that I couldn't get air into my lungs, and a sound came out of me that was like the chuffing cough of a large dog, but with the amp cranked up to 11. This is because I am emotionally susceptible, and it's important that you know this about me before you listen to me talk about Kubo and the Two Strings, the newest product by the folks at the Laika stop motion animation studio. It is important that you know this about me because when I tell you that Kubo and the Two Strings is maybe the best film of the year, a tour de force, and a masterwork of visual storytelling; that its score is intensely moving, that its images inspire wonder and occasionally slack-jawed awe, and that its story pierces to the quick and sensitive parts of your soul, it is important that you know that this is not the attempt of a dispassionate critic to opine on intricate points of technical mastery. It is the opinion of a person who went into a movie theater and was deeply moved.

After seeing Mad Max: Fury Road, last year, a friend and I went and got something to eat. The conversation we had while doing so was one of those rare conversations that you can have with a good friend, where you open your heart and talk about feelings and experiences that you normally keep to yourself. Like people who have been through a trauma together, it bonded us. I had a similar experience watching Sicario, a film so intense that I felt like I was having a low grade heart attack from the 90 second mark until the unspooling of the end credits. Kubo belongs in this class.

This is among the most beautiful looking films I've ever seen. If there had been no dialogue and no score, but merely a silent procession of the film's images, I would have counted it well worth the price of admission, and would be recommending it to all of you. 

This is among the best sounding films I've ever heard. If there had been no images and no narrative, but merely the score played as if it were a symphony, I would implore you to buy the recording.

That it is both of these things at once, and that they are drawn together through the power of a narrative that doesn't pander, that respects the emotional intelligence of the audience and the power of story, that understands the intimate, warm, homely nature of love and the cold implacability sterility of evil, that its hero is a child not because it is a movie aimed for children, but because only a child can give and receive love in the way that allows that homely love to transform that sterile evil into something better, more generous, and more decent...well, now we are talking about something exceedingly rare and exceedingly fine. 

Go see Kubo and the Two Strings. If you are a parent of small children and don't get out for movies much, I will be happy to Venmo you money for a sitter for the evening. You deserve it.

Rating: 4/4