Scarlet Review: A Simplistic Piece Of Art

Mamoru Hosoda’s Scarlet is a gorgeously animated tale of love and humanity that would benefit from an ounce of subtlety.

Thankfully, this uninspired retelling of Hamlet (or Amleth, as the once-King is creatively named in Hosoda’s film) is merely the prologue for what’s to come in Scarlet. The movie quickly offers an alternative ending to Shakespeare’s classic text: one where the young princess is killed at her uncle’s hand and travels to a war-torn afterlife. There, she meets fallen members of her father’s court and vows to get revenge on Claudius from the dead.

Once the film moves past the narrative restraints of the Hamlet retelling and dives headfirst into this dreamlike, fantastical hellscape, Scarlet quickly forges its own identity and more closely resembles the creative, inspired stories of Hosoda’s existing works. The concept of an afterlife where time and space don’t exist, bringing several generations of fallen soldiers together to settle their unfinished business, is a brilliant idea that immediately picks Scarlet up from its shaky start.

From there, Scarlet becomes a bold, wondrous playground of ideas that come to life through Hosoda’s predictably dazzling visuals. The attention to detail on display throughout this movie is spectacular, whether that’s during the dynamic action sequences or captured within the vast, sprawling landscapes of this unconventional afterlife. Watching this on the big screen, with the full effect of the film’s thunderous sound design, is a truly enchanting experience. There’s barely a shot in the entire film that doesn’t aim to impress. 

Unfortunately, Scarlet’s narrative doesn’t quite live up to the splendor of its visuals. Much like the classic tragedy that it’s inspired by, the story is a very dense and thematic one – but where Hamlet takes its time to develop each character and theme with expert precision, Scarlet often feels quite repetitive and surface-level in its commentary. Hosoda inexplicably feels the need to repeatedly explain the film’s message through clunky, over-expository dialogue instead of letting it develop organically.

This compulsion to constantly remind audiences what the film is truly about, in place of trusting the audience to figure it out for themselves, can be very frustrating at times. It culminates in a very lengthy, self-indulgent finale where the characters essentially just spell out Scarlet’s deeper themes to the letter. And this doesn’t just happen once. Much of the film’s core message revolves around what it means to be human, and how we reckon with the inevitability of death in a universe of such finality. It’s a fascinating concept, but not when the characters outwardly ask “what does it mean to be human?” at least three different times throughout the story.

Thankfully, Scarlet manages to get the audience on its side by the end, simply by virtue of how charming and hopeful it is. In a world where cinema is often used to explore the darkest corners of our society, it feels very refreshing to watch a movie whose core tenet essentially revolves around how lucky we are to be alive. There are hurdles in the road, and it doesn’t always capitalize on the potential of its sparkling ideas, but Scarlet is brimming with an endearing creativity that’s very hard to dislike.

Hateshinaki Scarlet (果てしなきスカーレット) had its World Premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 4, 2025.