Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
If you take away the fantasy elements, ‘Suzume’ is basically about a 16-year-old girl chasing an older boy across the country because he’s hot… and because she develops a misplaced sense of responsibility for the chaos he runs into, which is also a great excuse to keep stalking her crush.
Maybe the rest of my review might make it sound like this Makoto Shinkai film isn’t worth a watch, but if you’re an anime enthusiast and don’t mind a weak plot as long as the visuals are stunning, you should absolutely add it to your list.
Set against the backdrop of a beautiful coastal town, ‘Suzume’ begins with its young protagonist spotting an incredibly handsome stranger on her way to school. It is ‘crush-at-first-sight’ for Suzume, after the young man stops to ask her for directions to a strange abandoned site containing a solitary door. Though they part ways soon after, fate quickly pulls them together on a high-stakes journey across Japan, where they must seal supernatural portals before they unleash catastrophic earthquakes through a monstrous force known as the “worm.”
The young man is Souta, a teacher from a family tasked with ensuring these dangerous doors remain sealed shut. But in a weird-comical twist, a mysterious cat turns Souta into a tiny three-legged chair, forcing Suzume to carry him along as they chase the cat across the country while also closing more portals before they trigger devastating earthquakes. To add some emotional spin, flashbacks show the chair Souta turns into is a hand-crafted piece of furniture made lovingly by Suzume’s deceased mother.
The teen is raised by her aunt Tamaki, a feisty but deeply caring woman who understandably begins to panic when Suzume suddenly runs away from town and does not return home for days. At first, the teenager claims she is simply staying over at a friend’s place, but as her strange journey stretches on and eventually takes her all the way to Tokyo, Suzume keeps spinning increasingly desperate lies to stay away from home.
More than the fantasy-portal storyline itself, the film’s strongest moments come from the various connections Suzume forms along the way, even if they seem to good to be true. Whether it is a sweet friendship with another young girl, the hilariously bizarre episode involving a young mother who casually recruits Suzume to help at the bar where she works after barely knowing her for a few hours, or Souta’s oddball friend, the people she meets become the film’s most memorable element.
What felt rather pointless in the story was how the creature keeps opening dangerous portals, only for Suzume and Souta to close them again with relative ease every single time. The odd part is that the creature never even seems particularly evil, in-fact, it appears strangely fond of Suzume. Eventually, the whole conflict starts feeling less like a genuine threat and more like a bizarre little game.
The climax does not land with the emotional weight director Makoto Shinkai probably intended, though its central message remains quietly moving: sometimes, only we can rescue ourselves from our pain. Fortunately, the film’s lush animation, whimsical atmosphere, energetic cast of characters, and instantly memorable soundtrack make this bizarre portal-hopping fantasy easy to recommend anyway.
Watch ‘Suzume’ on Netflix.
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