Product Info

Studio

CoMix Wave Films

Director

Makoto Shinkai

Genre

Action, Adventure, Animation

Rated

PG

Theatrical Release Date (NA)

Apr 13, 2023

Film Length

2hr 2min

Purchase From

Suzume is a visually stunning film for animation enthusiasts and action lovers. With its non-stop pacing and uplifting story, this movie is sure to capture both your attention and your heart. At just over two hours, it’s well worth the run time.

Just Me and My Chair

Suzume focuses on the main character, Suzume Iwato, a high school girl who lost her mother when she was young and now lives with her aunt in Kyushu. One day while biking to school, she encounters a strange young man — Souta — searching for a nearby abandoned area. She directs him to the remains of an onsen resort, then later decides to follow him there herself. Though the mysterious man is not there, she discovers a magical door and a stone cat that transforms into a real cat and escapes. Chaos ensues from there, and she and Souta, who is now in the form of Suzume’s childhood chair, thanks to a curse from the cat, must travel around Japan trying to stop natural disasters caused by giant worms that live in a nearby realm.

If it sounds a bit tumultuous, that’s because it is, but there are also moments of quiet character interaction. In fact, the dialogue in this film is unexpectedly good, funny, and sweet without being overly saccharine. These moments of connection, especially with random kind strangers that Suzume meets on her journeys around the country, also do a great job of communicating the film’s wonderful theme of the joys of living. This theme, in turn, works well with the overall plot, which centers on saving large swathes of the Japanese population from natural disasters. Because we see the great happinesses inherent in life, like tasty food, beautiful landscapes, and great company, the stakes of a great number of people losing all of that feel all the more heavy. This theme is also driven home by the vignettes of regular people enjoying their lives, unaware of the danger that quite literally hangs over them, that are interspersed in every action scene. The integration of these sympathetic images makes the film more emotionally resonant than many similar action movies where lives are also at stake.

In an interview, director Makoto Shinkai shared that the 3/11 earthquake and tsunami in Tohoku, Japan, inspired him to make the film. He hoped to help younger generations remember the disaster and inspire empathy for its victims through engaging storytelling, and I believe that he achieves his goal beautifully through this film. He also depicts and honors the abandoned places and emptied rural areas that are now common throughout Japan as a result of the aging population, increasing urbanization, and frequent natural disasters. These messages combine with his depiction of the beauties of life to create a truly moving and universally applicable story.

A Treat for the Eyes and Ears

The animation in this movie is absolutely scrumptious, with bright, complex settings, beautiful lighting, and smooth, easily legible movements. The immense care taken with each frame is evident, and the scenes in abandoned areas are especially impressive. For fans of Studio Ghibli food, the meals in Suzume are similarly appealing, and the entire film has a strong atmosphere of springtime beauty. 

Adding to this atmosphere is the lovely soundtrack, which melts pleasantly into the background in quieter scenes, but really shines during action sequences, lending a special gravity and sense of epic importance to the struggles of the main characters. All this gives the film its own unique and satisfying aesthetic, creating a world that looks and sounds simultaneously wonderful to inhabit and worryingly perilous. You will sink easily into this world.

Not All Sunshine and Rainbows

By no means is the film perfect, however. A major thread throughout is the budding romance between Suzume and Souta, which at best feels unearned and at worst feels shoehorned in for the sake of fitting into the usual tropes. Considering that for most of the film, Souta is in the form of a chair made for Suzume by her deceased mother, and romantic moments between them include her sitting or standing on him, the fact that feelings develop between them at all, much less true love, is somewhat baffling. Most of their conversations are about how to defeat the worms and return stability to Japan, and the interactions that they have outside of that barely even cover the basics of their lives. In fact, Suzume has more chemistry with the random people she meets on the road than with her chair boy.

Just as the romance feels underbaked, the heavy action focus of the movie cuts into other threads of character development. A major plot is Suzume’s childhood memories of trying to cope with her mother passing away and her relationship with her aunt, both of which ultimately reach resolutions that feel too easy. A particular scene with her aunt and yet another magical cat leads to more questions than it does answers, about both her aunt’s real feelings and the magic system more generally. In order to achieve the desired ending of Suzume’s mother arc, the film also conveniently breaks an explicit rule of the magic system, which never leaves a good taste in the viewer’s mouth.

The film could’ve easily addressed these problems as well. There is at least one, if not more, extraneous action scene in the first half of the film, when Suzume and Souta chase worm after worm while finding out only a tiny tidbit of information from each encounter. These scenes make the first half of the film feel repetitive and somewhat frustrating, and two of them could easily have been condensed into one, which would provide more time to develop character beats and romance — though my preference would be to nix the romance altogether and focus more on platonic love, which is really the film’s strength. 

The Final Chair Leg

Despite its flaws, Suzume is undeniably worth a watch. It’s an emotionally stirring film with stunning visuals, a grand soundtrack, heartwarming character interactions, and well-communicated and interesting themes that make sense within the plot. The film releases in the United States on April 14, and it’s the perfect early spring watch.

An early screening was provided for this review. Fans can visit the official website for ticket pricing and more.