Hodaka (16) travels on a ship from his island to Tokyo, yet it is hit by a heavy rain storm. Hodaka is saved from drowning by Keisuke, who eventually takes pity on him and hires him to work in his Tokyo magazine publishing company with his niece Natusmi, where they investigate paranormal rumors. It is constantly raining, but Hodaka witnesses how a girl, Hina (18), prays and is able to stop the rain, causing sunshine. Hodaka and Hina open an Internet website where they charge people for Hina to stop the rain. Hina reveals the only way to stop the rain permanently is for her to sacrifice herself, thereby returning the weather back to normal. She disappears, Hodaka is chased by the police for escaping from his home, but is able to find Hina in the clouds. Hodaka persuades Hina not to sacrifice herself. The sunshine disappears, and the rain keeps falling for three years, drowning Tokyo. Returning back from his island, Hodaka meets Hina again in parts of Tokyo still not submerged by the sea.
Makoto Shinkai's 6th feature length anime film is a dark allegory on climate change which poses some uncomfortable questions about a clash between Ayn Rand's individuality of objectivism and the need for sacrifice for a greater collective good and the future of humanity. As with most of Shinkai's movies, "Weathering with You" also suffers from a too vague, loose 'stream-of-consciousness' narrative where there is an excess of superflous scenes which are disconnected from each other, no matter how gorgeously animated they are. In the first half, it almost seems as if large portions of the movie are just "random scenes" in search for some organized storyline. However, the main plot of the relationship between Hodaka and Hina, a girl who can bring sunshine and stop the rain, has its moments of poetry (for instance, an epic scene of Hodaka looking from the cliff, where a beam of light from the sky travels across the sea, as he narrates he found the other end of the light in the scene where the beam of light illuminates Hina in Tokyo). Wherever Hodaka goes, it is constantly raining. On the other hand, Hina has the power to clear the sky and bring sunshine, a stable weather. Their pairing is thus a merging of yin and yang. The ending is chilling—Hodaka shrugs off the fact that Hina's sacrifice could bring back a normal weather by claiming that the "world was always messed up", and thus the dark ending sets in. Hodaka and Hina choose individuality and personal happiness instead of saving collective humanity, which therefore destroys the happiness of millions of people. Is personal selfishness more important than selfless altruism which could change the future for the better of humanity? These themes deserved a better movie than the rather chaotic "Weathering with You", though it gives food for thought.
Grade:++
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