Suzume

I watched Suzume a while back (on a plane, I think), though it had been on my list for a long time. It's another Makoto Shinkai film, which I generally always find appealing--there's a very dream-like quality to them. 

This one is no exception to that. Suzume Iwato is a 17 year old schoolgirl with a curious mind who lives with her aunt. She has dreams of herself as a child walking through a ruined landscape looking for her mother, but doesn't know what they mean. One day (hello, inciting incident), she runs into a young man not much older than herself (uni aged) named Souta who is looking for abandoned places...with doors. 

She follows him and accidentally releases a keystone (which turns into a mischievous cat) and thereby unleashing some potential earth-shattering problems. Souta is a "closer", something his family has been doing for generations. They hold back this gigantic earthquake-causing worm...ok, as I'm typing this, I realise it sounds very, very implausible. But it doesn't while you're watching, I promise.

For reasons, he gets turned into a three-legged chair and Suzume and he go gallivanting around the country relying on the help of strangers as they try to get him human again AND re-capture the cat. The aunt and a friend of Souta's get involved at the end and everything is very neatly tied off, returning back to Suzume's early memories--she had, indeed, once wandered the Ever After. 

And...that's all I'm gonna say about the plot because, honestly, there's a lot going on and to really explain it would take ages. I'll say that, as with all Shinkai films, it is visually gorgeous, though some people have complained that it doesn't stand up to his other works. It's a coming of age story, but also a heroic, epic journey with sacrifice and love. I really enjoyed it though I can definitely see that the romantic aspect (with Souta) wasn't the original, intentional goal and is a sideline. 

I will possibly watch it again in the future, perhaps with little dude.