When Marnie Was There

Studio: GKIDS
Directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi

May 21, 2015 By Austin Trunick Web Exclusive

In 2013, Hayao Miyazaki broke the hearts of animation fans when he announced his retirement from filmmaking. To pile on to our grief, Studio Ghibli—the studio he co-founded in 1985—announced last summer that they were taking their own hiatus from making films following the releases of The Tale of Princess Kaguya and When Marnie Was There. As of now, the beloved studio’s future still hangs in the air. And so, with somewhat heavy hearts, we review Studio Ghibli’s final film for the foreseeable future.

Anna is a 12-year-old girl living with her foster parents in Sapporo, Japan. She’s a loner—anti-social and sickly, preferring to sketch other kids as they run about on the playground than join in their fun. Following a severe asthma attack, Anna is sent to live for a few months with her aunt and uncle in the country, where doctors believe some fresh air will do her good. She spends her time there by herself, drawing and exploring the nearby marshes. In time, she becomes fixated on an abandoned, decrepit mansion set on the other side of the water—and the little girl who lives there, who only appears at high tide.

When Marnie Was There is a tender ghost tale from director Hiromasa Yonebayashi, the filmmaker behind 2010’s The Secret World of Arrietty. It’s a gorgeous piece of animation, as is to be expected from a Ghibli joint; the backgrounds, in particular, are some of the most immaculately-realized we’ve seen among their output. The story unfolds at a slow, relaxed pace, which allows the audience time to get to know the troubled child it centers on. However, this makes the film’s sudden ending—in which the mystery is rapidly tied up with a deluge of back story—feel all that more jarring. The final reveal somewhat spoils the movie’s dreamy, mysterious air, and the self-pitying protagonist isn’t as immediately loveable as your typical Ghibli heroine; however, the journey in Marnie is so pretty that it’s unlikely many will pay great mind to those flaws. (Make sure to stick around for Priscilla Ahn’s sad, beautiful end credit theme.)

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