Review of Suzume
Suzume no Tojimari seems like it is attempting to create something extraordinary or abstract, however doesn't succeed in doing so, creating no real meaning or significance at the beginning. It feels as if the movie does things, and doesn't explain it making it seem cringeworthy. However, later in the story, if you start connecting with the characters, through the funny interactions, their adventure, the flashbacks, and its desperate attempt to creating empathy with those characters, and as it starts explaining some reasons for their actions, it is likely that it starts creating significance and an emotional rollercoaster will be forged. Even though some people might callthis movie cliché, because of the characters, others will find the characters easily empathizable, as they would come across as someone who has shared experiences. The significance of other personal experiences may also interact with the enjoyment of this movie, especially because the movie does seem to be decently reliant on exterior experiences for emotional response. Nevertheless, I don't think it's required to empathize with the characters to enjoy the movie either, which leads to my next point.
The animation quality is extraordinary. It may be, that the animation quality will appear as even more magnificent if watched on a high-resolution movie screen, which I personally did, but it's difficult to deny such high-quality animation. The animation was without question the movie's biggest strength point and it was only supported by the amount of spectacle that happened in this movie.
There was so much spectacle that happened in this movie. One happened after another, though a lot of it felt without significance, which spectacle should have, as it felt it sometimes didn't provide reason. However, much of what happens in the movie is in reference to Uzume mythology and its inspiration was taken from the 7/11 earthquake. So that may explain some of the reasons behind the actions within the movie. However, it may be that we can also infer a message from the unreasonable actions and the ending, which I will not explicitly state as that may ruin the user experience, but this may be the solution to all the unreasonable actions.
Lastly, the romance in this movie seems like the weakest part of the movie. Not that it really is a romance movie, but Makoto Shinkai's movies always had something that connected two people to forge a love interest. This time however, it felt like what Makoto Shinkai had succeeded in in so many of his movies, hadn't succeeded in this movie. The movie does not seem to build up much reason for the deep care and love in the story. But maybe it also is trying to allude to how sometimes romance doesn't require much for it to be established.
To conclude, I feel like it is hard to recommend this movie to specific groups of people, and instead wish to not recommend it to people that are only interested in a deep romance story, which it does not contain. Though, I feel like this movie is definitely worth a watch, and even if it didn't succeed significantly in romance or reasoning, it is entertaining nonetheless; the animation is superb, the sound quality is great, the music is great, it has touching moments, and it has funny moments. So if you do give it a watch, I would highly recommend you watching it in the cinemas on a big screen, because it really does have a great impact on the enjoyment of the movie, as it would be such a shame not to when its animation quality is top tier.