When Marnie Was There

Is it possible to watch When Marnie Was There and not feel like it’s a eulogy for Studio Ghibli? Perhaps you can shake that feeling, but the deeply melancholy at its core and its emotional goodbye feel self-reflective. I think some of this has to do with the announcement of the studio’s closing, which may or may not be temporary, which would make this the final possible film from Ghibli, ever.

Well, if the studio must close and if it were to never produce another work, this is certainly a fine, tender-hearted film to leave as the last work. It may not be among the top works in Ghibli’s output, but that only means it’s somewhere in the top ten percent of animated films.

The backgrounds for this film are lovely, occasionally looking photo-realistic with the impression that they are real photographs with the characters animated on top of them. It’s this expansive technical skill and attention to detail that makes Studio Ghibli so beloved within the animation community, well, it’s one of many reasons. They really do spare no expense in bringing about the vision of the director to fully rendered life.

If as much time was taken with the narrative, which uniquely plays around with imagination, memories, magical realism, and ghostly apparitions in order to explain a child’s blossoming self-identity and yearning for her familial background. When Marnie Was There mostly plays things straight, and when the oddities start pilling up it is quietly magical and enchanting in numerous instances, but there’s the strangest aftertaste here of narrative melodrama gone wonky.

It is not like prior Ghibli films were known for a breakneck pace and wall-to-wall noise, but When Marnie Was There is occasionally asleep at the wheel in unfolding its story. What starts off as feeling like a possibly minimalistic work feels minor by the end. Those long passages of silence and contemplation are more effectively employed in, say, Kiki’s Delivery Service, which this film strikes a similar chord to on occasion. Here they feel a little bit like delaying the narrative, but when the two main characters share a quiet dance in the moonlight such concerns melt away. I think I was maybe just happy to have one last chance to visit their animated world.

When Marnie Was There piles on the plot twists and reveals in the last thirty minutes or so, but this heart tugging feels earned. Maybe not entirely from the narrative drive of this film in particular, but from the entirety of Studio Ghibli. If we must say goodbye, then watching as two characters wave to each other out of windows feels right, somehow. If we must say goodbye, then at least we say goodbye with one last tender, earnest, sweet film from Ghibli. I don’t want this particular chapter to close, but this is a very good way to close it.