Award-winning screenwriter Mari Okada’s (Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day) directorial debut film is a thoughtful, heartbreaking exploration of motherhood and the cruelty of time set in gorgeous animation. Its music, its framing, its cuts between scenes, and its soft art style that contrasts so well with some blunt violence and cold moments all serve to advance these themes, and save for a few hiccups, Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms succeeds wonderfully.