Review of Your Name. (2016) by Jed H — 06 Apr 2017

"Kimi no Na Wa (Your Name)" Review!!!

Synopsis of Review:

Visually beautiful and a modern romance story that feels crafted over adult life and expectations as opposed to traditional fairy tales of our younger selves. Although it may suffer from pacing issues and a centralized focus only on the two protagonists, it does well to showcase the yearning for something or someone.

***Full Review: (Spoiler Free!).

The premise of the story is about two teenagers who swap bodies 2-3 days a week and get to learn about each other from their interactions with friends, family, and coworkers. Although somewhat haphazard looking at first in both story and initial presentation, the story becomes thoughtful in keeping itself in check and presents a beautifully threaded piece that does not create a sappy tearful ending, but rather a mature look at life and love.

Audiences will initially be drawn to the scenery and minor details in the story that complements its expert framing and storytelling without explicitly stating emotions or traits of the characters. Simply their small actions in day-to-day matters, the lived in styles of the room and simply the authentically beautiful locales brings this movie to life from the first frame.

The drawing point aside from its well detailed visuals is the development of its characters prior to entering the scene. Most stories start with a generic template to start a character's background, but this one drops viewers into the lives of two complex characters and this adds weight to how both protagonists also view their counterpart. And though the characters are complex, they are both immediately identifiable from their small quirks and thoughts.

What made the story a bit difficult to process was the constant back and forth between the two characters which essentially created 4 main protagonists that overshadowed some of the side characters that seem to be there solely as support as opposed to really contributing to the story at large. Why is this an issue? The supporting cast to both protagonists play prominent roles and carry weight to the confusion, but at the same time they are all left having no true development outside of their initial meetings with the exception to two characters who seem to get a bit more screen time than the rest.

The pacing speeds up and slows down a lot which is not entirely noticeable throughout the film, but it does distance and draws in viewers repeatedly during the movie which hurts the overall story at times. Even the ending felt elongated just to show how much time has passed, which is not horrible and it does well to exemplify the troubles of both protagonists, but it felt tacked on as if the story's ending was not truly thought out until the climax.

What Kimi no Na Wa does well is creating a fairy tale that is not a tearjerker or plays on strong emotions, but creates ripples of small ones that builds upon each other to understand the formation of love between the two characters. It identifies more with true love as opposed to childhood love and that both protagonists are far from perfect, but seem to complement each other in many different ways.

It follows common tropes in love, but betrays many as well. It portrays love as a past, present, and future ideal that grows and ages with time. As opposed to immediate satisfaction of romantic pursuits, it builds upon waiting and yearning that many individuals go through and which many movies do not truly capture.

This movie reaffirmed my choices of love to this point and helped me realize that these recent emotions of yearning and loss are commonplace and everyone in this world is looking for something or someone to fill that gap.

It's truly a modern down-to-earth movie even with it's ridiculously over-the-top plot and yet it captures love in a way that has not truly been seen before.

It is not a tearjerker, but it resonates deeply on many levels that life is filled with small moments that create beautiful future moments and that memories fade away over time and it's okay if it leaves a yearning or emptiness.

Love is... courage.