Review of Suzume

To review this film, I find myself first looking back at Shinkai’s other works. This movie feels like the complete antithesis of 5 Centimeters Per Second. Both movies have strong themes of reflecting on the past, but execute this in vastly different ways. 5 Centimeters wallowed in the melancholy of this theme, sacrificing plot and character to become more art than movie. Suzume, on the other hand, spent perhaps too much time on plot. This is not Shinkai’s usually awe-filled romance or intense tearjerker--arguably, it’s not a romance at all. And yet somehow, it still follows Shinkai’s star-crossed lovers formula, a realization I came towith some surprise. In the same manner as Garden of Words, Your Name, and Weathering with You, the first act of the movie is spent with our leads coming together (and as with the latter two, Suzume also spends this time immersed in the supernatural element inherent in the premise). Then, of course, fate demands some separation (not necessarily fully physical), the ‘’star-crossed’ part, and this fate must be rejected, accepted, or something else entirely, with this choice having consequences. This is still the driving larger narrative, but there’s a lot of additional details and story movements throughout. Though most of these individually come out a positive, on the whole it creates a feeling that this movie was overstuffed, and despite the two hour runtime it needed to be longer.

Does this make the experience unenjoyable? Absolutely not. Suzume can still be breathtaking from it’s many elements, and it’s certainly easy to get hooked into. In particular, a mythical tone permeates the movie, due in part to Ghibli’s influence on the film. Certainly, Shinkai has claimed inspiration from a few of Miyazaki’s animations, and he’s often been compared to the legendary director, but Shinkai went full tilt this time. This will certainly be clear to even a casual Ghibli fan such as myself, but this is not a detriment nor mindless plagiarism. As I demonstrated above, Shinkai still left his mark on Suzume, and you can see his progression as a writer from movie to movie just as clearly. He just mixed in the primal, natural world in a Ghibli style. Shinkai has been dealing with nature his last few movies, and trying out Miyazaki’s method to strengthen his own ideas was an experiment that payed off. The magical world feels alien, both in the characters that fully spring from it and the forces that drive the conflict, the perfect soft magic system. The lore is not overly complex, but it’s still something I can sink my teeth into is as terrible and majestically impressive as you could hope for. The one element that seems incongruous are the humans (other than our main characters) that are aware of and interact with the mystical. They play a slightly more active role than the background characters or dead cultures of the last two films, yet feel completely removed from the events. The one in particular that Suzume (the character) interacts with just past the first act has completely inconsistent motivations and worldview, being arbitrarily antagonistic or helpful in the five minutes they occupy the screen, and overall there’s no actual characterization or culture of the group. This is a minor nitpick though, and overall tone is an incredible strong point of the film, which I found compelling.

Of course, part of what made this portrayal of the supernatural so powerful was of course the visuals Shinkai is famous for. Naturally, every background felt like it could be it’s own piece of art. If you’ve seen Garden of Words or any Shinkai film past that, you know just how detailed and colorful every frame of animation will be. Occasionally the characters felt a bit off, such as with a CGI crowd or a shot where a character looked less detailed than the background behind them, but this wasn’t a consistent problem in any way. While I’m on the technical aspects, I should also mention the soundtrack was just as excellent. You could hardly tell it was Radwimps reprising their role as lead musicians, from how subdued they were and how well they fit the vibes. In the movie and by itself, it is both striking and blends in well. If anything gets you to cry, it’ll probably be the OST.

I’ve mentioned a lot of ways tone is done well, and this continues with the comedy of this film. This is funny! There are some great jokes that naturally arise from the dialogues between characters, and visual gags that stick the landing. Comedy is ultimately pretty subjective, but it seemed to keep the movie from getting too bogged down with lore or darker moments.

Of all the things I could count as positives, however, character wins out as the best. Everyone
we meet on this road trip is instantly memorably characterized, and we’re not overstuffed with too many characters either, with each getting their time to shine. Most are kind people, and we get to see heartwarming scenes of people helping just each other out in big and small ways, the humanity of which is appealing. You believe that these people are genuine friends, regardless of how long they’ve known each other. Suzume herself has an introspective arc, not particularly drastic a change, but one which focuses on her relationships. Suzume is far more impactful a character than Mitsuha or Hodaka because she has so much to personally go through and growth to achieve. The plot exists for her, not the other way around. The problem here is our unfortunate male lead. Who is kinda bad. The fact that Suzume’s arc has a focus on so flat and uninteresting a character significantly brings down the meaningfulness of her story, though he’s not so awful a character that his presence on screen single-handedly makes scenes unenjoyable. Looking at Souta by himself, he’s fine--he's the Howl of this movie, and like Howl he'll be simped over despite being the worst of the main cast. It’s just that his relations to other characters are pretty lame, and it doesn’t help that he’s a part of the problematic “mystical” group I mentioned earlier.

To continue with that point, the romance is clumsily bad. Not being center stage this time keeps it from ruining the movie, but watching Suzume not quite kiss Souta or blushingly deny accusations that she likes him feels forced because there’s no chemistry. We have no idea how Souta feels about Suzume other than vaguely positively, Souta never learns or grows from her, nor has a genuine respect that becomes love. And in turn, Suzume has very little to fall in love with because he’s so empty, though it’s more believable because of his maturity and his role as a “closer.” There’s just so frighteningly little substance to it that it rings hollow. So much of this would have been fixed if this was presented as a silly kid crush or a one-sided attraction, but instead the movie frames it like we should root for the two to get together and that just feels wrong.

Overall, Suzume sticks out from the Shinkai filmography as being something unique, which although I am continually disappointed there’s not another Your Name to sweep me away in wonder, experimenting more was definitely something Shinkai needed to do. Especially given that he's renowned for telling the same story over and over again in different ways.

Well, I'll probably stew on this a bit more, then settle in for another long, long three year wait.