"Suzume" - Review

Suzume Iwato (Nanoka Hara) is a schoolgirl who lives with her aunt Tamaki (Eri Fukatsu). On the way to school one day, she ends up bumping into Sota (Hokuto Matsumura), a strange boy seeking ruins. On a whim, she follows him and learns that his job is to close doors from other realms which would otherwise unleash a monster to destroy the world. When he is cursed by a spirit and transformed into a sentient chair, Suzume takes him on a road trip to transform back. Along the way they may have to save the world!

Makoto Shinkai's latest film is a frustrating, but still ultimately engaging beast. At its strongest it is a road trip movie, jam packed with details, gorgeous watercolour animation, and engaging likable characters (standouts are Chika the orange delivery girl, pictured above, and Serizawa the cool kid who takes centre stage largely for the third act) - the comedy beats are strong and the relationships seem natural and good natured. It's a sweet film, and world in general, and Shinkai has an affection for the characters and people within it. But it's also a film of 2 distinct halves. It could have been a simple silly road trip of a girl and her chair, but instead casts that by the wayside in favour of a huge, world-spanning apocalyptic threat which feels out of place and jarring alongside its main plot. Whilst spectacular to look at, its emotional heights (including the ending, of all things) only earns its emotions and payoffs with the trick of "soaring music and big emotions"; handily forgetting that it had emotional weight and payoff earlier on with its sweet characters and their arcs, and has just abandoned them in favour of whatever the hell this Kaiju Worm plot is. It feels like coming into the anime movie finale of 2 series worth of content you have neither seen nor studied for. Whilst still impressive to look at, it still is disappointing after the lower stakes fun we've had up until now. The movie also seems to know this, as its end credits are a rather sweet series of vignettes of the characters we have met over the course of the journey.
To be fair: if I had a quid for every animated movie where Shota Sometani has played a delightful supporting character, I'd have 2 quid, which is not a lot but strange that it's happened so frequently.
It's an admirable effort and an ambitious film, and still worth a watch, but I feel it would have been stronger had it focused on its less "anime" plot. Granted, that plot is about a man transformed into a chair, but we've had weirder.