Have you ever reconnected with someone you knew as a child? If you grew up in multiple neighborhoods, chances are you don’t talk to most people in your hometown anymore. You can try to keep in touch with a handful of friends, but even then the initial goodbyes feel like the end. Is your presence in their lives worth remembering? Or are you being left behind? your letter The film resolves this dilemma with an air of childlike wonder. While this isn’t the most grounded story about teenagers overcoming trust issues, sometimes we need a little joy, if that means being honest with ourselves. What better way to express this than with a handwritten letter?
I fully admit that this premise requires a certain amount of whimsy to accept. A scavenger hunt from strangers that promises secret hideouts, school survival tips, and mysterious friends? If this was done via text message, it would end up turning into some pig-killing crypto scam. But there’s something inherently trustworthy about a handwritten message: it feels like it was written just for you. Our heroine Suri finds these letters filled with a sense of adventure, each revealing a different piece of information about the school and how to discover it. She learned the names of all her classmates, found a greenhouse with free scented tea, and even found a way to sneak past school guards for Chinese takeout. By the end of each trial, she felt more comfortable in her new school and more confident in herself.
This is important because another issue raised in the story is bullying. Suri transferred to another school because she resisted bullying, but ended up becoming a target in the class. For a while, she could proudly think that the girl she saved, Jimin, would be by her side. But when Jimin cries that she has to move, So-ri feels like she’s been thrown into a lion’s den and has to move too. In the process of getting the letter, Suli met a boy named Dongshun, a former friend of the writer Haoyan. He suffers from bystander syndrome because a bully at this school actually saved him from a previous scuffle. But when the bully commits a direct crime, he chooses to end that debt by taking the blame on his behalf. Su Li learned from him that although Hao Yan was as considerate to him as his letter, he also disappeared from his life without warning. Getting these two out of their shells is crucial to confronting their pasts.
However, that’s exactly what the film may leave some viewers wanting: a lack of nuance or subtlety. While this is not an innocent depiction of teenage trust issues, it is a fairly simple matter of good kids being good kids and bad kids being bad kids. Sometimes, they’re afraid of showing unflattering traits in any character other than a bully, so go to great lengths to have them speak to each other or loudly to the audience in advance. Basically, you don’t get the feeling that essentially good characters will remain conflicted for long. I feel like this was done to keep the pace of the story going, as a long argument could get in the way of them continuing their journey. But part of me wonders if a deeper connection could have been formed between these characters if they had chosen to make things more complicated.
Having said that, two moments involving these letters did ultimately get to me. One time was when Jimin finally wrote back to So-ri, and the other time was at the end. Without revealing the specific connection between the two letters, both men revisited Suri’s role in the story and the key points of the letters. Initially, she traces the letters to find a place to belong, but just because you never see them again doesn’t mean you’ve been forgotten. Deep down in their hearts, they were wondering, “Would they be proud if they saw me now?” Through these letters, Suli heard what she had always wanted: Your presence in my life meant something to me. I admit it’s a bit contrived to have every major character involved in this struggle. It’s like the best friends in this universe go on a date every year. But they are called universal themes for a reason.
As for the visuals, director Kim Yong-hwan is a bit off Zhao Xianyaoriginal art style. While the webcomic is more of a painting style filled with watercolor brush strokes, the film pursues an aesthetic similar to Xin HaichengHigh realism. In fact, the film was distributed by Makoto Shinkai’s production company mixed wave. There’s definitely a trade-off to this shift: the comic’s simpler design and limited color palette give it a dreamlike quality that suits the story. But I can’t deny that the application of Makoto Shinkai’s aesthetics to settings outside of Japan is itself novel. I had a similar feeling when China released Yesterday’s crystal sky and the taste of youth. There’s something immersive about this style that makes me feel like I’m actually there, and in this case, I actually was (yes, I’m Korean).
The movie is also willing to break from the style when a scene calls for more magic. When So-ri opens her first letter and sees a hand-drawn map of the school, Ho-yeon’s doodles come to life and she dives into the map like an episode from a movie. blue’s clue. Another trial involved walking through a forest blind spot, revealing only parts of the surrounding environment in pitch black space. If anyone has been to a teamLab exhibition, they will definitely be reminded of their immersive art experience, where moving pictures were projected on the wall. Using this kind of imagery to simulate walking with your eyes closed really struck me.
The soundtrack, though, feels like a situation with too many cooks in the kitchen. The use of music here is very reminiscent of Korean dramas, with a insert song Obsessed with every dramatic moment. So-ri’s voice actress, Lee Su-hyun, is actually a half-sibling of K-pop group AKMU, so she also sang the title song. Like something Radar WIMPS For all that Shinkai has done, parts of this movie are like her music videos with four other K-pop stars (sh, Cloud Koh, CIFIKA, HEN). On the one hand, I dig how it commissions original songs for each moment, rather than the Hollywood pin-drop strategy of classic songs. The problem is that none of these artists are responsible for the soundtrack.
When a popular song appears in a Makoto Shinkai movie, it still feels like part of the same movie because Radar WIMPS also formed background music. That’s not the case here. Unlike more synth-based inserts, Kim Tae-sung’s (1987: When the Day Comes) score sounds more like a lullaby. His vibe is more like the characters taking in the breeze and humming along on their journey to school. So it’s quite jarring to hear his piano playing switch to a trap beat. To be fair, Lee Soo Hyun and HEN fit this vibe best. The other three also have very specific scenarios, so they require some wiggle room. Remember, multiple artists are sharing this auxiliary line.
Overall, your mileage will vary depending on whether the movie moves you or not. It’s easy to attack its sentimentality, especially when it spells out its message to the audience. But if you’re willing to indulge in beautiful melodrama, the resulting story will tell you why people still write to each other when they can. When there’s no chance of an immediate reply, you want to make sure every word counts. That’s how they know you’re worth writing for. If that’s what it’s about, then it’s a story worth telling.