Review of Suzume

I need to start by saying Makoto Shinkai has been my favorite anime director since I first started watching his movies in the mid aughts. The beauty of the animation, particularly the skies, is beyond compare. I've eagerly watched every movie of his I could access, and I've seen all of them except for Weathering with You. (I'll see that one as soon as I can.) I've watched Your Name many times. I loved them all. Needless to say, I was very excited to see Suzume, excitement which faded increasingly over its runtime. It's not a bad movie; it's just not a good one. I'mnot gonna say even in Your Name that his characterization was anything to write home about; Mitsuha was just "the girl," distinguishable from "the boy" by shyness and sweetness (unless, of course, it serves the plot to do something else), where "the boy" is brash and self - centered. So Shinkai's characters serve his plots and not the other way around, but in Suzume, what "plot" there is is a mess, thin, and never really ends up leading anywhere. Is it a road trip movie? An isekai? A journey of self - discovery, and if so, for whom? Is it spiritual, supernatural, or is it a commentary on climate change and depopulation? (If so, it's the depopulation that's causing climate disasters based on a single line in the film that declares this outright, which has nothing to do with anything else in the movie and is certainly not addressed as a solution at the end.)

It ends up being one of my least favorite kinds of movies: the kind where lots of stuff just happens and none of it means or connects back to anything, but at least most movies like that focus on a few characters going on a single journey. Suzume throws a million random characters at you and abandons them any old time - even important characters. Various things are hinted at (such as two potential love interests for a relatively minor character and absolutely nothing happens with either of them; indeed, though he gets a lot of screen time, there's no reason for one of them to be in the movie at all ... but alas, that's true of almost every character in it) and never followed up on. It would have lots of themes if any of them were developed into anything, and since they're not, it ends up having none.

Much to my dismay, it feels more than anything like he whose movies were always oozing with passion and a need to express something vital has lost his passion and is out of things to say. It's still pretty to look at and it was a reasonably entertaining way to spend a couple of hours. It doesn't go anywhere good, but neither does it go anywhere bad. My friend I watched it with was mad about wasting the time on it, but though I'm prone to feeling that way more than she is, I didn't feel that way about this movie. It was okay, a perfect 5 out of 10. It certainly won't change your life... but it won't do you any harm.