ridiculous rating

just watch it!

Dreadfully Boring

A different way of telling a story

This is a poignant masterpiece birthed by Studio Ghibli. Wonderful story line and picturesque scenery accompanied by relatable protagonist and her struggles to accept herself. This movie will not disappoint you. The twist at the end would leave you crying for a long time. Would totally watch again.

"When Marnie Was There" is a strikingly beautiful animated feature from the renowned Studio Ghibli. Based on a British novel of the same name, the story follows Anna, a troubled teenager who finds friendship and ultimately revelation in Marnie, a mysterious young girl who seems to live both in Anna's world and in her dreams. Like all Ghibli productions, the animation is lush, detailed and fluid. The voice work in the English version I watched is good despite being somewhat flat and generic at times. I very much like Studio Ghibli movies but find in general that anime adds more to fantasy films (where it can make unreal real, such as "Howl's Moving Castle" or "Spirited Away") than it does to more 'realistic' films such as "When Marnie Was There". Despite that, and being both the wrong gender and decades away from the target audience, I really enjoyed, and would recommend, "When Marnie Was There".

"When Marnie Was There" has the unenviable task of representing Studio Ghibli's first production without the involvement of either Hayao Miyazaki or Isao Takahata. These two men, Miyazaki in particular, are synonymous with Studio Ghibli, which left "When Marnie Was There" needing to reassure movie-goers that the company would continue in the fine traditions of its founders.The result is promising with slight reservations. There's a lot to like here. The main character, Anna, is a complex central piece to a fairly complex story. She is emotionally distant from those around her, owing to the early loss of her parents and the loss of familial connection this brings her. This makes her genuinely unpleasant to some of the people who try to reach out to her, an ambitious choice by the writers for a character that we need to connect to in order to care about the film. I found that this really worked, and provided an intriguing and sometimes unpredictable character to focus our attention on.The story that unfolds around Anna, involving her fascination with an abandoned house and its former occupants, is beautifully presented to us but with few scenes that really dazzle dramatically. A gripe that I had with the film was that some slowly simmering plot points, such as the sinister grain silo, didn't really deliver on their early promise, and overall the film ties off a lot of plot points fairly rapidly which left me feeling slightly dissatisfied. Overally I was left suspecting that there were probably a lot of plot holes that wouldn't take a lot of poking to reveal, if one spent the time.This wouldn't matter to me too much if the film's emotional core was solid and it is, again, for the most part. As is fairly typical of a Ghibli film, my eyes did well up a few times during the movie and some of this was certainly due to the emotional connections that were developed throughout. However, I couldn't escape a nagging feeling that at times the film used some fairly cheap tricks to elicit these reactions from me, including the swells of a very unsubtle score and the buckets of tears produced by the on screen characters.The film's key strength is in visuals and accompanying sound as it is a delight to experience. Director Hiromasa Yonebayashi and his animation staff deserve enormous credit for conveying the sensations of the main character with such tactile clarity. When Anna crosses the bay to the abandoned mansion for the first time in the low tide, the animation and sound combine to such an effect that I could practically feel the cold water around my ankles and the uncertain contours of the bottom underfoot. These are the moments that really carry the film and display the talent still on offer at this illustrious animation studio.

When Marnie Was There is the latest and perhaps the last film from the legendary Japanese Studio Ghibli. The two giants of the studio, Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata have both gone into retirement and the studio announced that they will not be making any more films for now. Takahata and Miyazaki are responsible for some of Ghibli's greatest films such as Spirited Away, My Neighbour Totoro and Grave of the Fireflies. When Marnie Was There is directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi and is about the introvert girl Anna who is sent to the countryside to live with relatives. She becomes obsessed with a deserted mansion and the girl who lives there who may or may not be real.Ghibli's films usually contains imagination and the focus is almost always on children but despite that, the films are not only meant for them and also often include deep meanings and thoughts. Ghibli has always been incredibly skillful in drawing and creating magnificent images and When Marnie Was There is no exception. The beautiful Japanese landscapes makes you want to travel there immediately and see the country for yourself. The film is told like a detective story and Anna finds and puts the clues together one by one. She is our guide throughout the film and what she experiences, we experience too.When Marnie Was There has a story I believe many can relate to. Not being able to find your own place in this world and to feel like an outcast. Anna searches like many children do, for their place in society and at the same time she's trying to understand her life and situation. The film is also about strong friendship and love and why we are drawn specifically to some people. It's always hard for me to try and summarize Ghibli's films and explain why people should watch them. When Marnie Was There is a tale that absolutely works well as an entry to the magical world that is Studio Ghibli.