At the beginning of the movie, Sophie Hatter is convinced that she is an ordinary girl and that nothing exciting will ever happen in her life. Sophie is a young lady with long, brown hair carefully arranged in a braid and passes her days working very hard in the hat shop owned by her family. This is a rather dull choice for a young woman living in a country where magic exists. Even her clothes have dull colors! But what happens when Sophie decides to sneak out from work for once to visit her sister? She encounters some rude militars with evil intentions of molesting her ¬¬

It is in this moment when a handsome wizard grabs Sophie and takes her to a stroll in the sky, landing in the safety of her sister’s workplace. That was a dreamy encounter, don’t you think? So how come we say Sophie is unlucky? Well, just when our protagonist goes back to the Hat shop, a powerful witch transforms her into a granny for daring to attract the attention of the handsome wizard. Poor Sophie is not having a good day u.u

There is a curious looking castle with long legs parked not far from Sophie’s town. The owner of the castle is the handsome blond wizard who saved her from the military: Howl Pendragon. Howl is a guy surely grabs attention wherever he goes, as he dresses in vivid colors and wears showy ornaments. But what is most important about Howl are the several rumors that circulate about his life, especially about his great power and womanizing manners. Some people even say that Howl eats the hearts of young women.

After she was cursed and transformed into an old lady, Sophie assumes that she won’t be in great danger if she encounters the wizard. Howl even might know how to turn her back to a girl, so Sophie decides to enter the castle. There she will find out that Howl is not half as evil as the rumors say… I mean, no one who feeds you a healthy breakfast instead of kicking you out from his property could be considered evil, right? Nevertheless, Howl is hiding many secrets. His eyes are also somewhat cold and distant. So, to which extent is it true that he is a heartless wizard?

Sophie stays in the moving castle as the cleaning lady, with the secret mission of finding out how to break the contract between Howl and his fire demon, Calcifer. For a “dark” wizard, Howl proves to be a rather curious family man. Besides having Calcifer and Sophie, the castle housess Howl’s apprentice Markl, the dog Heen, and the Witch of the Waste. Yes, the witch who cast the spell on Sophie loses her powers, so she comes to live with them. Thus, to accommodate everyone, Howl has to make a pretty cool show of magic. He even gives Sophie a flower shop and a room to make hats!

The daily life interactions of Sophie and Howl tend to be hilarious. He first sends her to the king to make excuses for him, as Howl does not want to participate in the war. On her way there, Sophie confuses Howl with a dog (Heen) she carries all the way upstairs to meet with the king (lol). But besides being a coward, Howl can also be capricious sometimes. When Sophie cleans the whole castle and mixes the cosmetics in Howl’s bathroom, he throws a magical tantrum that ends up in Sophie accidentally seeing him naked (lol again).

Despite being an old lady, Sophie could do pretty cool stuff beyond being a house cleaner. For example, she escaped the palace of the king of Ingary in an airplane. Sophie also helps Markl with the magical apothecary, but her biggest moment in Howl’s Moving Castle is when the war reaches the city where the Moving Castle is hidden. Noticing that Howl was going to fight to protect them, she moves out everyone from the Castle, including Calcifer.

By this point, Sophie is so worried about Howl that she doesn’t realize the spell that kept her as a granny is wearing off. She feeds her silver hair to Calcifer in order to build an improvised vehicle that the former Castle inhabitants use to search for Howl. Only that the Witch of the Waste realizes that Howl’s heart is inside Calcifer and grabs it, starting to burn herself. Panicking, Sophie pours water in both of them, destroying the vehicle and nearly killing the poor demon. Fortunately, she begs the Witch to give her Howl’s heart, and revives both the wizard and Calcifer.

Finally, Sophie gives a kiss to the scarecrow that was following them throughout the adventure and… presto! He was turned back into a prince. A normal human wouldn’t have been able to do all of this. Surprise! Sophie is a witch too!

It is pretty obvious that Howl and Sophie liked each other from the beginning. They had chemistry since the sky stroll, don’t you think the same? Nevertheless, Sophie’s granny appearance didn’t count for Howl because he was able to see beyond the spell. This is noted when he arrives late one night and watches Sophie sleeping. Howl actually tells her that she is beautiful when they are talking in the field of flowers. Sophie insists that she is a good for nothing, except for cleaning. But in this scene, we can see that Howl thinks she is truly brilliant. The problem is that Sophie hasn’t realized that yet.

Sophie also admits she loves Howl indirectly when she says all his virtues in front of the king, with shiny eyes. She even appears young for some seconds. Sophie also screams that she loves Howl in a nightmare where she watches him being consumed by his “monstrous” self. Actually, when Sophie finds him in his half bird form in the middle of the war, she is not scared or repelled by him. So, she also does not care about his appearance. Their love was strong and that was what prevailed till the end.