Weathing With You - Cheap Thoughts

Makoto Shinkai didn’t exactly have an easy job making this film, and I don’t necessarily mean with the production, but with audience expectations. Shinkai’s previous 2016 film Your Name stormed the anime community and became a box-office success in Japan and helped make a name for himself in Western markets and another prolific director with a beautiful style, good use of pop music and emotionally fragile protagonists. All of which is present here. In some ways this could be argued that it makes this film a disappointment, if you’ve seen plenty of Shinkai’s filmography then I’d argue there’s very little in this film to surprise you, the majority of conventions that carry out throughout his films are here so if that’s somehow something you’re tired of then this film might night impress you.

That being said it would be difficult to find someone who would find beautifully details and vibrant animation and catchy music to be a negative. If that were all there were to his films then that’d be a different subject matter, but these films are never hollow. Our protagonists Hodaka Morishima and Hina Amano are both strong yet brittle, they struggle constantly yet their connection to each other and to their supporting cast shows what they struggle for, what matters to them, empathising with these characters is never difficult. These all sound like rather basic elements and yet somehow finding them all together is somewhat rare, it’s such an obvious concoction that Shinkai makes it look as easy as it should be.

This is all there is to say about Weathering With You, it’s not reinventing the wheel, but it’s a film made with such passion behind every aspect and it works in almost every regard, the characters are identifiable in their struggles, the soundtrack is boppy, upbeat and catchy, yet above all else the animation is gorgeous, the detail in the background of every shot, the fluidity of character movements, the lighting and reflections during the rain scenes, it’s simply beautiful. A film that can be strongly recommended to the majority of audiences and it can be expected that the majority would be satisfied with their viewing.

-Danny