Review of Suzume

[First anime film I've watched in a theater, this film will be extra special to me because of that] What is this phenomenon I'm experiencing? The works of Makato Shinkai are widely praised by audiences and critics alike, but here on Letterboxd, you'll find a hefty amount of people that are either indifferent or cynically critical. Being that Letterboxd is a website where it's popular reviews are driven by humongous like numbers and seeing your review in the top 3 on a film's page, it's easy why a review that favors on the opposing side of critics and audiences would also be popular. I guess that's whathappens when you thrive in an echo chamber.

Anywho, I've been a firm Shinkai supporter judging from the 3 films of his I saw before this. His bread and butter have been love stories set across a supernatural/fantasy adventure that gives way to amazing weather shots, creative cinematography, and unique mixing of traditional animation and CGI animation; they've been a heavy emotional journey and that definitely feels epic, I have to prep myself whenever I see one of his films. And Susume is another win.

I said earlier that his bread and butter is love stories but that's not always the literal case. In a film like Children Who Chase Lost Voices, it's more a relationship of a slow-building bond between teammates, and people who need to complete a task together, and Suzume starts off like that too but eventually gives way into love.

A very unique story here, our titular character stumbles across a door that seems to lead into an alternate dimension, and she's granted the ability to see this red evil "worm" that exits these doors, these worms case national disasters in whatever place they happen to spawn from, and Suzume ends up accidentally unlocking "the key" to one of these doors. Now teamed up with a "closer" whose job is to shut these door and prevent these disasters from happening, they go on a journey to stop more doors that appear to be opening all over Japan, all while poor Suzume tries to make sense of the madness.

The movie takes a non-traditional road trip route as well, as Suzume simply tries to get back home after the first door experience, more conflicts pop up that force her to travel far away from home. The film is also surprisingly funny, for the first two-thirds the movie had me laughing quite hard in certain situations; whether it be the film throwing out a reference to Studio Ghibli's Whisper of the Heart, or seeing a tweet comparing the walking chair to that famous robot dog you memes of on YouTube, or a running gag about the chair being sat on...oh yeah did I forget to mention the closer guy's soul ends up being put in the body of a chair Suzume's mother built when she was young?

But the third act is when the film noticeably changed for me. After something happens to our closer mate, Suzume goes on another journey to help him, and the film's structure turns around. The humor is dropped for the majority of the third act, the editing and scene transitions become much quicker and jerky, and I started to feel the movie's runtime; either that or I was just terrible at judging the runtime in this film. This third act isn't bad but the changes definitely piled which leads to a feeling of this act not being as strong as the first two.

Also after Shinkai went full Shinkai weather porn with Weathering With You, it seems like he's dialing back on specific weather shots and instead showing off the broad landscapes and sky's of the various locations Suzume and the closer feel. He's going less Planet Earth and more "Ridley Scott film shot by Roger Deakins". Really can't emphasize the visuals enough, some shorts are borderline David Lean-esque with eye-catching uses of dimension and perspective when it comes to meshing the backgrounds with the foregrounds as well as the mixing of animations.

So while this recent Shinkai film may have the weakest third act I've seen of his work so far, the emotional payoff is still well earned and it's an emotionally fulfilling ride that you'll need to take a bit of a breather before re-watching again, just like with the rest of his work, check it out now.

Side note:
-The English title of the film being named after the main character is kind of lame though, if it was called Suzume's Locking-Up....would that be any worse?

-Suzume does just as much running as the lead girl in Children Who Chase Lost Voices!