Hodaka Morishima is a 16-year-old from Kozushima who's run away from his upper-middle-class home, using a ferry to get to Tokyo. He lives on the streets for a time, looking for odd jobs while Tokyo experiences a constant downpour. During one of his first nights there, a young girl named Hina Amano takes pity on him while working her job at McDonald's (and yes, it actually is McDonald's and not a copyright-safe stand-in!) and gives him a burger for free. Encouraged by this, they part ways for awhile and Hodaka lands a job writing for a small tabloid. As time goes on, Hodaka eventually runs into Hina again and discovers that she can pray to make the rain stop. They set up a small business selling brief reprieves from the rain, but this power comes at a terrible cost. Furthermore, both Hodaka and Hina are both being pursued by the police.

What do you do when the rain won't stop? Weathering With You attempts to answer this question in both a literal and figurative sense. From acclaimed director Makoto Shinkai, the man behind the universally beloved your name., and CoMix Wave Films, it tells the story of two young people whose lives become entwined in a Tokyo trapped under an endless rainfall. Weathering With You is an interesting film to discuss, especially because while largely good at what it does, I don't think it reaches the lofty heights it's aiming for.

Visually, it's gorgeous, as expected of a Shinkai movie. The character animations are smooth and crisp, with a relatively realistic look that grounds the film in its setting. Tokyo is particularly well realized. The city is lovingly recreated, with many real-world locations and landmarks identifiable throughout it, and everything from the sweeping skylines to intimate indoor locales is marvelously done. The greater Tokyo Metropolis is a well-worn setting for anime, and Japanese media in general, but Weathering With You makes you feel like you've never seen it quite this way before. The shattered building with the shrine on the roof is a really unique visual set against the backdrop of Tokyo's shimmering neon vastness.

A great deal of attention is paid to rain and water movements. When the rain falls, it's truly awe-inspiring to see the care put into animating each individual droplet. The way the raindrops (and at times tears) roll down surfaces and interact with the characters and environment is remarkable and lends a surreal quality to a number of scenes in the movie without being outright fantastical.

The cast are all strong and likeable. Given that the entire film hinges on Hodaka and Hina's relationship, they do not disappoint. Their stories of escape, obfuscation and eventual blossoming love are enjoyable and make them easy to root for. The supporting cast like Nagisa, Keisuke and Natsumi are given much less screentime but make a huge impact whenever they are onscreen. Each has their own unique quirks and charms that allow them to leave a lasting impression, and their contributions during the final escape/chase sequence are a delight.

The movie's themes are certainly resonant. There are elements of young people being harassed by authorities in a world that has no place for them. Hina gives up her entire being as a sacrifice, in part to a job and in part to the happiness of others, and the consequences of that are explored. There's also an unmistakable statement on climate change. There's a quiet undercurrent of dread for these people living under an unrelenting, unforgiving set of weather conditions that are making normal life impossible and looking for any solution to the problem. But in that sense, there is hope. There's a scene in particular where an old man delivers exposition regarding the sunshine girls and humankind's relationship with nature. In particular, he points out that our perspectives are very short and limited, and that our need for the world to be in "balance" is a relatively modern notion. In the end, all we have while facing a volatile, unpredictable world is each other.

The cinematography is solid as well. The shot compositions are strong, and the film is visually exciting without being confusing. There's good use of occasional POV shots with fish-eye lenses and blurring at the edges to simulate the feeling of trying to look at something in the rain. My only gripe with the cinematography is the movie trailer-esque "black screen with dramatic narration" moments that pop up several times during the film. Otherwise though, visually, thematically and cinematically, the elements of the film all come together nicely.

And yet there's an unmistakable sense of missed potential keeping Weathering With You from standing alongside its own predecessor as one of the all-time greatest anime films.

Nothing in the film feels incompetent or poorly executed, but you don't get the sense of anything being particularly risky or groundbreaking either. The film is good from start to finish, but it never quite makes the leap into being great. It's hard to articulate exactly why that is, but the lack of any truly defining elements is one reason that comes to mind.

The runtime is another issue. Weathering With You is not exactly a short film at over two hours long. There's a lot of movie here and not enough tension to sustain it for my tastes. Certainly, the characters often find themselves in very tense situations--homelessness, vagrancy, lack of supervision, being chased by police or harassed by predators, none of those are exactly safe or secure. Hina is even taken away and transported to a frankly terrifying realm of storm dragons, sky jellyfish and colossal cloud whales. But at no point did I feel like there was much threat or cause for concern. We move at such a steady pace from scene to scene and for such a long time that there isn't much of a chance to stop and feel the weight of what's going on. I wouldn't call the movie predictable, but none of its events are necessarily shocking either. All of the potential major threats to the safety and security of our cast just sort of evaporate without much consequence.

Similarly, Hina and Hodaka have almost no friction in their relationship--they have a fondness for each other before they've even conversed and never really come into conflict. In fact, our leads never appear to suffer much in the way of consequences. Hodaka gets in two standoffish situations involving guns, but you never really worry about his safety. He also abdicates all of his responsibilities to the tabloid, but that never really amounts to much--Keisuke gives him money and helps him and eventually finds all the success in life (professionally and personally) that he wanted anyway. The police are supposed to be a constant threat throughout the film, but they're mostly just an inconvenience, and all that results from Hodaka breaking the law in the end is being on probation during his remaining three years at school.

I think this is most egregious in the case of Hina's absence. The film does a great job establishing how scary her disappearance should be--her body slowly becoming like seawater and the moment where Hodaka wakes up to see her empty bathrobe in the bed are both really haunting moments. Hodaka's desperate attempts to somehow get back to her also feel well executed. But part of the problem is that we don't have enough time as an audience to truly feel Hina's absence. We see her a few times in this other world as a reminder that she's still alive in some form, which clearly suggests that her rescue is at hand. Knowing that she is still alive and relatively unharmed sorta tells the audience "Hey, it's all gonna work out, enjoy this low-stakes chase scene." After the climax of the film, Hina and Hodaka are apart for three years...but we jump right ahead to Hodaka's graduation and reunion with Hina, picking right back up where they left off as if nothing happened.

Oh yeah, and all I can say without spoiling anything is that the feeling I got from the last 10 minutes or so of the movie was the epitome of the narrative losing me right at the end. And it also causes the cameo appearances of Taki and Mitsuha from your name., which is in fact meant to set the two films in the same timeline (with this film taking place in the summer of the year Taki and Mitsuha reunited), to make far less sense. If you've seen both movies, you should understand why.

Maybe that's the problem holding this film back. It's gorgeous, technically well executed and thematically resonant. The characters are fine and there's just enough tension to keep things moving. But there seems to be a hesitation to fully commit to some of the heavier themes at work, and that results in a two-plus-hour film that's little more than generically pleasant. It feels harsh to say that, because there's nothing lacking in its technical merits per se, but I think it holds itself back from being a real must-see. Weathering With You is a good film that I recommend you see if you have the chance. I'm mostly positive on the majority of the film, but it's hard not to see where, if they'd leaned in a little more, it could've been one of the greats.