Weathering with You is a rare movie that delivers reasonably well on all fronts, art style, sound, characters, plot, the list goes on. It’s a beautiful, heartfelt, yet confusing fantasy romance movie which at times fails to keep the viewer engaged due to long drawn out sequences that have no place in the bigger picture of the film.
Plot 7/10
Primarily the plot of Weathering with You is told from the perspective of 16 year – old runaway Hodaka, as he ventures to the grand city that is Tokyo. This allows the viewer to have a unique experience of learning everything along with the Hodaka including, surviving in Tokyo, the environment around him and most importantly, learning more about the people he meets along the way. This is an excellent way of storytelling, as it keeps the viewer engaged, however personally I felt the beginning of the movie was a bit too slow for my liking as the film spent too much time on Hodaka’s early days in Tokyo.
Hina, the girl with the ability to stop rain, is essentially the centre piece of the film. However, something that Weathering with You doesn’t do as well is explaining the spiritual elements that surround Hina’s power. The reason for this is that exposition was dropped a bit too late into the film and frankly, there still wasn’t enough of it overall. What has been done in past films and the reason why those films succeeded is that the different elements of the spiritual realm were explained as the movie went on. I personally feel as a consequence of experiencing the entirety of the beginning of the film with Hodaka, we as viewers lose out on the opportunity for exposition to be subtly introduced as time goes on and instead it was forced on us halfway through the film.
Character Dynamic 8/10
The supporting characters in Weathering with You are an absolute joy to watch in the film, each of them brings their own unique flavour to the film. However, sometimes these characters overstep their boundaries when it comes to the overall feeling of a particular scene. One that comes to mind is in a more serious scene jokes were written in, which in turn breaks the feeling of intensity in the scene. The antagonists in this movie do their job well, serving as a consequence for the choices made by the characters throughout the movie, it is through these people that the movie can come full circle.
Art and Sound 10/10
When I initially saw the trailer for this movie, the thing I was most excited by was that RADWIMPS were returning to produce the soundtrack. And after seeing the movie, I can confirm that my excitement was not unwarranted for they have delivered yet another amazing soundtrack that is full of energy and light-heartedness and yet sombre when need be. The art is simply stunning to look at, nothing felt out of place and in a film with so much water, reflections were animated beautifully.
Final Remarks
Weathering with You is, by the book, an excellent movie. It gets so many things right and only a few things wrong. This movie is recommended to anyone who enjoys a light – hearted romantic film with a hint of fantasy, or if you’re like me and bought a ticket based on the art style, soundtrack and the director’s previous film.
