Film Review: WEATHERING WITH YOU (2019): A Downpour of Romance and Fantastical Melodrama

Weathering with You Review

Weathering with You (2019) Film Review, a movie directed by Makoto Shinkai and starring the voice talents of Kotaro Daigo, Nana Mori, Shun Oguri, Sei Hiraizumi, Yûki Kaji, Lee Pace, Alison Brie, Riz Ahmed, Brandon Engman, Ashley Boettcher, Dino Andrade, Erin Fitzgerald, Lexie Foley, and Barbara Goodson.

Becoming awash in the throes of teenage love? Typical. Getting literally washed away because of it? Not so much.

Following on the heels of his record-breaking anime Your Name, director Makoto Shinkai once again uses his distinct blend of magical realism to tackle the struggles of emotional growth while setting it amidst a backdrop of environmental catastrophe.

Weathering with You follows Hodaka, a 16-year-old who runs away to Tokyo for reasons not quite known. He attempts to survive in the rain-drenched city on his own but to little avail, nearly drowning in a freak rainstorm on the boat ride into the city. He’s taken under the wing of Keisuke Suga and Natsumi, who employ him in their hole-in-the-wall, rumor-mill publishing operation. Through his “investigative reporting” for an article he uncovers the legend of weather maidens – people with the ability to control the weather – and through coincidence crosses paths with Hina, an orphan who is also a “Sunshine Girl” – someone who can clear the sky through prayer.

Hina and Nagi are hard-pressed for cash, and Hodaka suggests selling her abilities as a sort of freelance gig. (Plus, it’d also be a cover for him to spend more time with Hina, for whom he’s developed a bit of a crush). Their service becomes a big hit in the rain-drenched Tokyo, and soon the trio is in high demand. But Hina’s powers start to wane over time as the rain comes down in heavier waves, and the authorities have picked up that Hodaka is on the run and are starting to close in. Desperate to protect Hina but wary of drowning out all of Japan in the process, the trio starts a frantic search for emotional – and literal – high ground.

Much like with Your Name, Weathering with You strikes a delicate balance of tone. On the one hand there’s a sense of grounded realism — evident thematically in Shinkai’s focus on societal tensions, and visually in the sharp, intricate, CG-enhanced details of his world’s mise-en-scène. It’s safe to venture that the latter ties in to the former, as well: the inundation of name-brand logos serves less as a suggestion of product placement and more so a cue of the corporate clutter with which our characters find themselves drowning in the modern age, hinting at an overwhelming sense of isolation and ennui. (Hodaka has no one to turn to for advice, so he turns to Japan’s Yahoo Answers board; Suga continues his tabloid fodder with an air of indifference for his readers or his own financial well-being.)

On the other hand, Shinkai infuses such realism with a sense of fantastical melodrama. Underneath our characters’ worldly troubles flows a current of the surreal. While Your Name had body-switching and time travel, Weathering with You has environmental manipulation and parallel planes of reality. These surreal elements just add to the struggles our adolescent protagonists are already facing, and perhaps even accentuate them more. And yet, the fantasy element never becomes a wholly problematic entity. Rather than simply being a conflict for our protagonists to overcome, Shinkai frames it as a new facet of existence to understand, cope with, and possibly further explore.

With this balance, Shinkai has crafted a sure-fire formula for teenage drama: a metaphorical one that emphasizes the disorienting feeling of our immersion into adulthood, but one in which material hardships are never forgotten.

Weathering with You also carries the added weight of climate consciousness with it, and therein lies its true emotional core.

Hina’s status as a Sunshine Girl acts as a literal connection to the spiritual world in the sky, but it symbolizes humanity’s larger connection to the worldwide ecosystem.  One cannot divorce one’s self from the other without experiencing immense consequences, that being either the destruction of the environment or of the planet’s most vulnerable populations. Although Hodaka and Hina never exhibit such a vast sense of political self-awareness, he fights for her over everything else – even the possibility of future clear skies. They choose humanity over a corrupted ideal of egalitarianism, because collective survival should not be predicated on the sacrifice of the few; society’s comfort at-large is not worth anything if people have to die just to uphold it.

The film does muddle its virtues a bit, especially with its brief reverence in a sort of conservative traditionalism. (The whole sequence with the grandpa is thematically strange: he argues for a return to traditional reverence in the natural world, but he also echoes the language of modern-day climate change deniers with the whole “the climate moves in cycles” diatribe. It’s hard to tell if the film sympathizes with this ideology, or is just using it as a beat-around suggestion of reverence towards history.) It also doesn’t really offer a pointed condemnation of the aforementioned (corporate) powers-that-be as the true culprits in the climate crisis, which leaves room for readings tinged with liberalism and individualistic responsibility to creep in and overpower any nuance.

But with the explosive climax and a weighted denouement (all bombastically scored with emotive heart-tugs by pop outfit Radwimps), Shinkai assures us that our protagonists have made the right choice. The personal becomes the political, no matter the roundabout way the film says it.

Like adolescence made manifest, Weathering with You is a coming-of-age tale with the stepping stones towards sociopolitical awakening. Shinkai’s signature magical realism and beautiful animation only aids to smooth down its rough edges. The film is a reassurance that you shouldn’t let your hopes be dampened, even if it is downpouring now, for there will come softer rains.

Rating: 7/10

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