It's summer: the season of long nights and beach days, and rest and reset. Here's four films to watch this summer between catching waves and catching up with old friends. Or maybe you could watch them together -- from romances to dramas to musicals, there's something in this list for anyone and everyone!

Ponyo

Hayao Miyazaki’s 10th feature-length anime, Ponyo, is a thing of seemingly unending delight. Pitched at a younger viewing age than preceding films such as Spirited Away (2001) and Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), and featuring a much more colourful, simple aesthetic, it stands out vividly from the rest of his films. There is profound creativity behind this fantastical coastal adventure. It comes overflowing with joy.

Brunhilde, a goldfish-like creature and daughter of the wizard Fujimoto, escapes the confines of her ocean home and heads for the surface world. There she meets a young boy named Sosuke, who names her Ponyo. Recaptured by her father and forced to make a second escape, Ponyo’s actions the second time send a magical cataclysm across the sea and threatens to unbalance all of creation.

There is a large-scale epic fantasy underneath Ponyo, involving underwater sorcerers, rapidly evolving magical sea life, and even gods. Like several of Miyazaki’s other films there is a strong folkloric quality, and a rich intertextual sense of the fantastic. Andersen’s The Little Mermaid is an obvious touchstone. To the film’s credit, much of this fantasy content is backgrounded by the characters, and exists to support and add detail to a very charming, simple fairy tale. It is a perfect combination: easy for younger viewers to follow, but richly detailed to keep more mature members of the audience engaged.

- Grant Watson

Little Women

Growing up reading Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, it wasn’t the politics of American Civil War in the backdrop that piqued our interest. It was the coming-of-age story in the foreground, involving the four March sisters — Meg, Jo, Amy and Beth — that impacted us, notwithstanding the different country, culture and period in which the novel was rooted. In a similar vein, Greta Gerwig’s screen adaptation also retains the timelessness and universality inherent in Alcott’s tale. It is a smart and modern, if not radical take on the much-loved novel.

Take the slice of siblinghood for instance, which, along with the feminist questions and angst, that is what Gerwig choses to draw the audience’s attention to. Then there is the articulation of the unfairness and skew when it comes to family dynamics — how one sibling is always saddled with the family responsibilities, while the other gets away relatively easy in life. But above all, there is also the overwhelming love, concern and care which resolves the issues and redeems the relationships.

- Namrata Joshi

20th Century Girl

Set in South Korea during the late ’90s, sentimental rom-com “20th Century Girl” offers local audiences a generous helping of nostalgia, while feeding Westerners’ growing appetite for content from the country that gave them BTS and “Squid Game.” Director Bang Woo-ri’s feature debut follows a 17-year-old as she navigates her life-changing first love and the intricacy of female friendship, joining the list of big- and smallscreen Korean love stories set in the era, including “Architecture 101” and “Twenty-Five and Twenty-One.” Available worldwide via Netflix, the coming-of-age movie offers a memorable study of how youthful errors, however silly or trivial, can define our lives.

The film is loosely based on director Bang’s own experiences growing up in Cheongju, a relatively quiet town in central South Korea, as well as time spent with her girlfriends in high school. Bang captures the feeling of devoted teenage friendships and the joys of sharing confidences with fellow girls, while acknowledging how they are inevitably meant to change — despite genuine efforts to sustain them — as time goes on.

- Claire Lee

 

The Princess and the Frog

The character of Tiana, the creation of writer/director Ron Clements and writer Rob Edwards (Roc, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, In Living Color, A Different World) is a black Snow White with backbone. Unlike her predecessor, she is not passive. Tiana, a vulnerable yet spunky and determined protagonist, wrestles with all the demons that come her way. She is aided by a flurry of oddball characters that never give up on her. And in this post-feminist age, she has her head firmly planted on her shoulders; it’s her flaky male suitor who needs a reality-check. For little girls, Tiana is a heroine. For little black girls, specifically, she is blessing – a mini Oprah.

Setting the young woman’s story in New Orleans was a smart idea. The region is ripe with colorful culture (costumes to folklore), was one of the first areas in the U.S. to send black legislators to the House of Representatives (way back in the 1800s) and topical (Hurricane Katrina). The Black community in New Orleans is strong and close-knit. Their experience may not be mainstream to the rest of America, but what is mainstream black culture these days? Why not explore the bayou, voodoo and all. After all, the Princess and the Frog is pure fantasy.

- Dwight Brown