Movie Review: In 'Scarlet,' transplanting 'Hamlet' to an anime dreamworld

Key Highlights

• A new understanding begins to dawn. In “Belle” (2022), a teenager who’s lived through tragedy finds a soaring catharsis in a virtual realm.
• I thought it was one of the best films of that year, and I still think it might be the best movie ever made about the internet.
• Either way, its song-and-soul-shattering climax is unforgettable. Yet in Hosoda’s latest, “Scarlet,” the director’s enviable reach exceeds his grasp.
• In it, his female protagonist is a medieval princess who, after seeing her king father killed by her uncle, and dying herself, awakes in an expansive purgatory.
• In this strange afterlife, peopled by the dead from all time periods, she seeks revenge for her father. Anyone, I think, would grant that a Japanese anime that transplants “Hamlet” to a surreal netherworld is a touch more ambitious than your average animated movie.