Review of Your Name. (2016) by Bingotheooo — 26 Apr 2020

Your name is a movie about the phenomena of a teenage boy, Taki, and girl, Mitsuha, switching bodies and finding one another. Though this film is visibly beautiful, the concept of switching bodies is made complicated by the overabundance of body switching and lack of plot motion within some of their “switches”. The art and animation flows beautifully together. There’s plenty detail to look at in any scene. Settings feel complete and alive. If you’re looking for a film to put on as more of a screensaver, this would probably be my first recommendation.

The character depth doesn’t go far beyond Taki being a stereotypical boy and Mitsuha being a stereotypical girl. I felt more intrigued in the lives of Mitsuha’s friends and family than in Mitsuha herself. All other unmentioned characters are simply forgettable with no substance. (Oh, and Ms. Okudera was okay.).

The music is unfitting for many situations it’s placed in. It seemed forced into climactic scenes where music shouldn’t have thrown emotion onto the viewer and would better have been portrayed through visuals alone. It would have been possibly better if there were more orchestral pieces, but instead the soundtrack ends up being an annoyance more than a merit due to feeling shoehorned in.

The conclusion didn’t feel worth the frustrating amount of build-up present throughout the film. I understand that sometimes subtlety is best for a conclusion, but there wasn’t enough of an ending to justify all that the characters have been through for the ending we got.

Your Name ends up being a constant frustrating tease. While the art is astounding, the movie doesn’t feel like a complete package. At its core, it wasn’t fun to watch due to uninteresting main characters and a plot so convoluted it’s hard to comprehend what’s going on at almost any time. Instead it’s just a pretty mess.