Review of Your Name. (2016) by Dauntless07 — 27 Nov 2017

Subtle and nuanced, but with the emotional weight of a sledgehammer, "Your Name" hit me so hard so many times that I was tempted to award it a 10 right away. But then, I thought I should stop to consider the complaints surrounding the film, and how many of them I consider to be flaws. I was also surprised to read director Makoto Shinkai personally request people stop lauding the film with blind unconditional praise, explaining there was more their team could have achieved with more time and money. After considering these things, I'm inclined to agree with him, but that won't stop me from praising the film as it is; I can definitively say this is Shinkai's best film.

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Of little shock I'm sure is the premise of Your Name. It starts out as a sort of Teen Dramady with a body switching twist, which is quite a creative way to tell a love story I must say. Even without many scenes of the two protagonists together, you start to buy into their romance nonetheless, because when you consider they have been living each other's lives, you realize they must know about each other in ways no one else does. Eventually, they naturally decide to seek each other out, and it's here the film cleverly switches genre's. To spoil this first twist would be wrong, but it's the first of many times the film really hits you in the feels. From there, much more is at stake than the simple love story, yet Your Name manages to put equal emotional weight behind an impending tragedy and the protagonists' fear of losing their newfound connection.

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The story is solid, but it does suffer from the short run time. At some points, the director even had to resort to montages over what would have been important character development; presumably to save money. The exposition in the film is quite substantial, and while much of it is necessary, I wish there was a way for some of it to have been relayed in a more organic way. If you don't have your wits about you while you watch this film, especially as a Westerner with limited understanding of Eastern Religious beliefs, (Shinto in this case,) you're not going to hear the things you'll need to understand the film's climax and resolution. In this way, the film makes your brain work harder than a typical cinematic outing.

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As one final flaw, the male protagonist Taki felt quite underdeveloped compared to his female counterpart Mitsuha. He had few character defining traits shown, besides a moment where his short temper shocks classmates of the normally reserved Mitsuha. His relationship with his father in particular wasn't explored at all, when it should have been. We know some things about his interests and lifestyle, but again, little that could be considered character defining. We know far more about Mitsuha as most of the screentime is about her. A more balanced development would have been better.

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With flaws out of the way, and there weren't many, I still fully recommend this film to anyone interested in Anime. Its strengths far outweigh its problems. The animation, for one, is immaculate. It really serves to compliment the story visually, even if that story isn't as fully developed as it could be. While the pop singles were somewhat distracting due to the vocals, the soundtrack as a whole is solid. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing the movie as much as watching it. I mentioned the film is emotionally heavy. Well, it's hard to explain, but imagine that feeling of loss when you risk losing someone near to you, that feeling of familiarity even though you can't specifically remember someone or something, and that teenage impulse to escape from your boring secure life and live out something more exciting. Those are the feelings this film invokes, and does so quite well. To go into more detail would take too long, so please just trust me on this.

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Also, unlike several of the director's previous films, Your Name has a satisfying ending. I was afraid we'd be left with another "5 cm per Second" kind of ending, but am glad to report the film ends conclusively. For me, it's complete as it is; I don't want a sequel. What I really wanted then, was more out of this film. It really needed another hour to develop the characters and story further, but Shinkai can hardly be blamed for this, considering he seems to feel the same, but ran out of time and money to do so. Well, if this is what he can accomplish in a mere hour and a half, I can't wait to see what he'll achieve if given the creative freedom a larger budget would allow. Definitely keep an eye out for more films by this director.