Review of A Whisker Away

The best way that I can describe this movie is that it's two movies wrapped into one, and the viewer is constantly being thrown between these two movies. One movie is a heart-warming story about a girl with really deep-seated yet subtle issues as she goes about trying to get her crush to love her. She's quirky, she's fun, and she's extremely likable. This movie is an easy 9/10 for me, it has a unique way of physically manifesting emotional themes and has some seriously cute moments that rival the best of anime films. The other movie is just... off somehow. It has an action plot completelyindependent from any emotional symbolism and the stakes and character development feel incredibly ham-fisted. It feels like a mediocre Saturday cartoon meant for elementary schoolers. This movie is a 5/10 on the high end, and it, unfortunately, takes up more and more screen-time as the overall movie goes on.

All the time I'd be in the middle of a really good moment where the characters, soundtrack, and visuals just capture you, and then the writers feel the need to rush some plot into it or one of the characters will say something that just really didn't sit right with the moment.

I really do believe that there was some serious potential for this film, but the vast majority of the good moments lay squarely in the first half of the movie. I recommend this film for the warmth that can be felt in those good moments in the first half, but I can't bring myself to give the overall experience more than 7. It feels like it drags on far more than it should, and the action-adventure climax should be cut from the movie completely, leaving it about 40 minutes shorter.