Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, perhaps best known for his work with Studio Ghibli, has gained popularity around the world for his creative and imaginative animated feature films. While they were originally released in Japanese, all of them have been dubbed into English with prominent voice actors and Hollywood stars. Over the past few months, I’ve watched and reviewed the English-dub versions of each of Miyazaki’s 11 films as writer and director.
And, as I discussed at the end of my CtMC series recap last year, this will be the first of three bonus posts to review the three films that Miyazaki wrote but didn’t direct. They are: Whisper of the Heart (1995); The Secret World of Arrietty (2010); and From Up On Poppy Hill (2011).
Now, after a year, I’m finally finishing these bonus posts with Whisper of the Heart (1995).
Synopsis: Based on a late-80s manga, the film follows junior high student Shizuku (voiced by Brittany Snow) as she’s on the cusp of young adulthood. She’s preparing to go to high school, but seemingly doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life beyond reading. After forming a connection with a boy at her school, she’s inspired to start writing and draws on her love of fairy tales and some memorable scenes at a local antique store to craft her very own fantasy story, “Whisper of the Heart.”
Spoiler-free review: So, the reason it took me so long to finally write this is because I watched the film a year ago, meant to write this review, didn’t, and then by the time I finally could, I was too far removed to do it justice. So, I finally decided to rent it again last week and now I can give you the review you’ve all been waiting for. This is ultimately a very dull movie. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its moments — the animation and music are both of the typical Studio Ghibli quality — but it’s slow, uneventful, and hollow. Granted, I think I liked it better when I watched it a year ago, but I think this was a bad one to end the bonus series on.
Letter grade: C-
Full review and critique: (Warning: here be spoilers!)
I think the root of the problem is that there’s no real conflict in this movie.
The only thing we have that resembles conflict is Shizuku figuring out what she wants to do with her life, because that does have a few stakes involved given that she starts devoting more time to writing and her grades drop. However, that comes in the last 20-30 minutes of the film.
Additionally, so much of the runtime is spent on Shizuku walking or running or people playing or singing a rendition of John Denver’s “County Roads” (it’s like a whole thing in the movie), and ultimately nothing happens. I have no problem with “slice of life” movies, like “Ladybird,” but there have to be more compelling elements than what we have here.
The few sequences where we see inside Shizuku’s imagination as she’s writing her book and imaging scenes from it would make for a much better movie than what we have here. The scenes we get building up the relationship between Shizuku and her love interest are also pretty good, but he leaves two-thirds of the way through the film and only returns at the very end. And the first scene in the antique shop is also well-done, and I wish the whole movie would’ve been of a similar quality.
Overall, I think tweens and teens might like this film best, as it might speak more to their insecurities, the transitions and decisions they face, and their need to discover what they can accomplish when they set their mind to it.
Again, I don’t think the film is worthless, just boring and a bit padded. I honestly think it would’ve worked best as a short film.
Personally, I think Miyazaki and his colleagues at Studio Ghibli do best when adapting or creating more fantasy-based stories. So it makes sense that something more grounded and everyday is going to be one of the lesser (although still not bad) movies in their filmographies.