Weathering with You

Makoto Shinkai's latest film, Weathering with You, looks like it is set to parrot the structure and themes of its predecessor, the blockbuster hit Your Name. But Weathering with You ultimately ends up being a completely different film compared to the former - in fact, in some ways it's thematically antithetical to Shinkai's other films.

When Hodaka Morishima runs away to Tokyo to escape his stifling, boring high school life, he's greeted with a harsh economic truth: for people like him who are too young and inexperienced to join a kaisha, employment opportunities are scarce (and illegal). It's a coming of age story where the protagonist/s is/are literally prevented from coming of age. He's not the only one having problems with work: all of the characters in this film have trouble with it in one form or another. Yet their economic situation is not their fault either; it's something they have to live by because of the generations that came before them.

And this generational conflict seeps into everything in this film. The youth are continually judged for their actions and not understood. An older woman tells her son in law that his "image" is unbecoming, even though he is legitimately trying to change. The youth are expected to pick up the slack for their older counterparts, as if these elders are owed something. They are forced to uphold a system designed by their ancestors, even though it may not be moral or right.

Shinkai blends that with a love story that is far more optimistic compared to his other, more pragmatic works. In the denouements of Shinkai's 5 Centimeters Per Second and The Garden of Words, love doesn't exactly conquer all; instead, it gives way to practicality and sometimes fades over time. Yet here, the bond that forms between Hodaka and Hina - Sky and Sunshine, depending on how you read their names - is a love that conquers all, tradition and fate be damned, powered by the exuberance and recklessness of youth. There are consequences to this notion - and the action that resolves the film can be perceived as foolhardy, even selfish. Yet there's a sense of acceptance by the end of the film, a sense that sometimes we should take as step back and entrust the future to the people who will actually be living in it. And in a world of your own making, the best thing you can do moving on is to live that life together with someone you trust.

The film is gorgeous and lush. Shinkai is one of the best documentarians of Tokyo as a living city, and any person who has stayed in the city will recognize places like Kabukicho, Sunshine City, the Shibuya crosswalk and even Odaiba. However, the film is not perfect; it stumbles in a few places as it tries to keep its secrets in for too long. The lore behind the fantasy is hazy, at best. It's paced awkwardly during the first half as it tries to establish its setting. And although Shinkai still knows his emotional cues, the film's overall emotional impact is blunted thanks to the way he structures this film. 

Weathering With You is a solid film, though only time will tell if it really stands up to Shinkai's body of work.