Review of Suzume

I feel like my thoughts about this movie are my thoughts about almost every Shinkai movie. The story is kind of messy, the editing can be unfitting in places, the characters are kinda shallow even if they do have chemistry with each other, and the movie does feel a little long because of its weird pacing.But visually, it looks really impressive, especially when it combines the 2D animation and the 3D cinematography. The paragraph above was the same one I used for my Weathering With You review almost 3 years ago and it applies to his latest project Suzume. But hear me out, it's notas predictable as I make it sound. Shinkai does take things in a new direction here a little bit and for the most part, he pulls it off very well. Out of his previous three films, I weirdly enjoyed this one the most. It's not perfect obviously, There are issues, but there are also really silly things I enjoyed about the film ironically.

STORY-
This film is Shinkais most action-packed one yet and I was on the edge of my seat for a lot of it, maybe im a sucker for a road trip adventure film, but I had a lot of fun watching. Even if the pacing takes a hit from all of the random eating scenes, it wasn't too noticeable because of how much goes on in this film. Usually in Shinkai films, there is always that one moment where I struggle to stay awake because the plot slows down to a near stop. But I never had that moment with Suzume. Yes, it still is a Shinkai film so of course there is an insta lovey couple that has really forced chemistry, but I feel like this film is not a romance film as much as it is a family film. The writing at its best is when it adheres to its themes of familial bonds, childhood trauma, grief, and unconditional love. Many side characters in this film relate to these themes in one way or another whether it's Suzume’s aunt, her mom, the friends she meets on the journey, and even the chair she falls in love with. Speaking of, I think turning one of the characters into a chair was ballsy but it played off very well. I focused more on what the chair meant to her in her childhood rather than the random dude she met who got transformed into it. And while their relationship is kind of goofy, i still felt like Suzume’s feelings towards Souta were genuine. Still though, I cannot take the premise seriously because seeing a stupid-looking kiddy chair parkouring around Japan trying to close doors from other dimensions was extremely funny. I cackled like a madman seeing Souta the chair trying to bond with Suzume. There are scenes where she randomly kisses the chair and one scene where she just sits on him,lol.Shinkai knew what he was doing when made that decision. Another thing that got a laugh out of me was the unapologetic product placement all over this movie. There’s even a Suzume-themed MacDonalds commercial that gave Suzume’s mom more screentime than the actual movie lmao. Shinkai definitely starts to lose steam when it came to his lore and worldbuilding because its sloppily explains what most of the antagonist's motives were, the function of the door worlds, and what the kitties are all about. It legit took me till the end of the film to understand what the hell was actually going on.Maybe I was just distracted by the food scenes.

CHARACTERS-
Suzume herself is as basic as anime protagonists can be. One thing to note is that this girl’s got legs for days. This random teenage anime girl happens to have the calves and stamina of an Olympic athlete. Half the movie is her running everywhere Me and my fat ass were screaming seeing her Forrest Gump her way across all of Japan without getting tired. She straight up turns into a parkour god at moments. It gets really funny at times when the film is just the routine of Suzume running away, not explaining why she ran away, meeting some random person who lets her live with them in exchange for unpaid labor, then she eats a big ass well-animated meal, then a worm appears and she runs away again. Rinse and repeat 3 times and that's like an hour and a half of the film.

The main flaw with Suzume is the flaw with the story as well. Suzume loves not explaining things to others. People would genuinely be worried about why she randomly runs off and she’s like “it's a long story you won't understand” Then she just runs away again without saying basically anything else. Suzume comes off as kinda mean sometimes, her aunt has every right to be worried about her, but Suzume just ignores her, and this comes back to bite her in the ass later and causes some really forced conflict. Her aunt just wants an explanation at this point. I mean it's not hard to say “Well, my friend is in danger, and I am going to help him” but no she doesn't say anything and causes more trouble for the people who care for her. IDK if real Japanese society is like this, but some anime depict how innocent people worry about causing trouble for others, but Suzume purposely leaves her aunt worried sick over her rampant behavior. I feel like if there was some more backstory into why she has trouble opening up to her aunt, this would make more sense, but Shinkai’s more popular characters are very stereotypical Japanese teenagers so that would probably be asking too much from him. The moral of the story, be honest with your loved ones, even if it's a little bit. A small explanation is better than none at all.

ANIMATION/SOUND-
Im wasting my character limit talking about how good the animation is, it's a Shinkai film, and it's really hard for me to even compare his animation quality throughout his filmography because they are all set at such a high ass bar. I see that Miyazaki's inspiration also hints of ufotable inspiration too in some of the settings and 2D effects.

Sound-wise I think this film has my favorite Shinkai soundtrack, it feels really whimsical and fantastical and at moments gave me chills. And the sound is epic as well. I kinda wish I got the chance to watch this in Imax or something. I will say that there was one really funny scene where Suzume is running on this terrain and it sounds like the default Minecraft stepping-on-grass sound effect lol.

ENJOYMENT-
Of course, this film is not the best, but it's a fine watch. I totally get why the film was successful because it's very fun to watch, especially with friends. Yeah sure some of the writing is messy in spots but I feel like a film like this is a good step in a new direction for Shinkai, and his breaking out of his comfort zone is more than enough for me.