Mutism, Myth, and Meaning in Song of the Sea
This is a review of the movie, Song of the Sea. It is updated from the original post from 2015.
Song of the Sea
Directed by Tomm Moore | 2014 | Cartoon Saloon
Song of the Sea is a quiet, deeply beautiful animated movie from Irish director Tomm Moore and the team at Cartoon Saloon (the same folks who made The Secret of Kells and Wolfwalkers). Song of the Sea is a story that blends Irish mythology with real-life grief, family, disability and healing in a way that honest and at the same time, magical.
My kids absolutely loved this movie. They found it on their own, and introduced it to me. They watched it over and over, again and again. It was as if each viewing of it was the first and enthralled them as it had in the initial experience.
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The story is about Ben, a young boy still grieving the loss of his mother, and his younger sister Saoirse, who has never spoken a word. Their dad, weighed down by sorrow, is distant, and the siblings are sent away from their coastal home to live with their grandmother in the city. But Saoirse isn’t just any little girl. She’s a selkie, a mythical being who lives as a seal in the water and a human on land. When she finds her selkie coat, she begins to awaken to who she truly is, and the two children embark on a journey that weaves together myth and memory.
The film draws from rich threads of Irish folklore: selkies, fairies, the Owl Witch Macha, and the sorrowful giant Mac Lir, all of whom reflect the emotional lives of the human characters. The characters feel like metaphors for the ways we carry pain, the ways we disconnect and the ways in which we heal.
One of the most moving aspects of the film is how it handles mutism. Saoirse’s silence is never treated as something broken or in need of fixing, it feels like an accepted part of who she is. She communicates through her presence, her actions, and eventually, through music. This felt deeply affirming to me, as a disabled neurodivergent viewer, and I would think it would be even more so for someone who is, like Saorirse, non-speaking?
The animation is stunning. It’s soft, hand-drawn, and full of texture. It doesn’t look like most big-budget animated films. The shapes and colors feel more like an illustrated storybook come to life, with swirling seas, cozy homes, and enchanted forests all rooted in Irish visual tradition. It’s slow and gentle, which might not grab every viewer right away.
While Song of the Sea might be for kids, it’s deep. It had dark edges. It has sorrow woven into it’s marrow, it is heavy, with slathers of joyful wonder and the entire story is dipped in magic. It aptly depicts grief, anger, confusion, pain and loss, and how we make our ways through. It’s about how we hold on to memories and how we keep going. It’s about family, and the small moments of care and connection that help us find our way back to each other.
