Wolf Children – review

Any shortlist of candidates to inherit the mantle of Miyazaki must surely now include Mamoru Hosoda, after his touching coming-of-age story about a mother moving to the countryside to raise her two werewolf kids. It's a fairytale in a real-life setting, photorealistically drawn in shifting light that rivals Monet or GTA5. How exactly do you raise wolf children? Doctor or vet? School or mountainside? Like vampirism, lycanthropy here becomes a metaphor for puberty – for growing up and choosing your own path – but telling the story through the eyes of the harried, bereaved but indomitable mother gives this calm, funny, only occasionally schmaltzy family film a maturity Twilight never reached.