When Marnie Was There: A Film Review
By: J. Angelo Racoma
Tags: Arts And Entertainment, Film, Movie Reviews, Film Reviews, Studio Ghibli

When Marnie Was There (2014)

A haunting, emotionally-driven story about loss, longing, loneliness, and finding oneself

Studio Ghibli films are known for their emotional depth. What may be eye candy at surface level will have a whole lot of layers, in terms of emotion, build-up, and even bigger-picture interpretation.

In many cases, it will be easy to dismiss a film at face value at the start — for example, when you browse through titles on streaming services like Netflix. But once you watch and finish, it can stir up all sorts of deep-seated emotions within.

When Marnie Was There is no different.

Until Hayao Miyazaki came out of retirement for the upcoming Aya and the Witch and How do You Live, When Marnie Was There was touted as the final Studio Ghibli film at its release in 2014.

The film was directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi who earlier helmed Arrietty, with which I feel Marnie shares similar themes and elements. The screenplay was based on a 1967 novel by Joan G. Robinson, although with quite some changes in character names and places (to localize it from England to Japan).

In gist, the story revolves around Anna, a sickly orphaned/fostered 12-year old girl who, for the summer, moved from big city to small town in order to help recover from a bad asthma attack. Being introverted and severely depressed, she did not have meaningful interactions with people around her.

Walking around town looking for subjects to sketch, she stumbles upon an old mansion upon a marsh and instantly gets drawn to it for some reason. She then meets a seemingly carefree girl of similar age — Marnie — and the two bond over each other’s loneliness and become friends.

These encounters blur the line between what is real and what is possibly fantasy, yearning, supernatural, or otherwise made up in one’s mind. But the eventual resolution here is a bit of a twist. Anna’s connection with Marnie is deeper than what one would initially think.

I did have my theories (e.g., she was a ghost, a long-lost sister, a personification of a childhood doll, or a subject of time-displacement). But the actual resolution was something more beautiful. It actually helped Anna address many of her unanswered questions about her identity from the past and moving forward, and how Marnie was central to this, after all.

And to give a bit of spoiler — yes, Marnie was real. And yes, the encounters were actually memories shared between Marnie and Anna.

Again, as with my film viewings, I watched with my eldest daughter, whom I am happy to say also has a growing appreciation for anime as a medium and film in general — both in technical and artistic aspects (she is into the fine arts).

In When Marnie Was There, there is the healing aspect and allure of a change in environment — a common theme in Ghibli movies. My daughter often tells me she often longs to move to a small town or rural setting such as the Kushiro Wetlands in Marnie (or “Itomori” in CoMix Wave Film’s Your Name, or Satsuke and Mei’s town in Ghibli classic My Neighbor Totoro).

Ten years ago, we also moved from the city up in the hilly suburbs, but my daughter reminds me how gentrification has caught up, with our suburban town now becoming so busy it’s practically becoming city-like.

I know a lot of people decry small-town life as slow, boring, or lifeless. But I grew up in the city where everything was five minutes away from home. I moved my family to the suburbs where we hoped we could find new roots and a new life amid a slower pace. Our family grew here, although it was also here where we encountered loss.

Viewings like When Marnie Was There make me think again of finding a change in environment — somewhere that can also help me find and discover myself again amidst the external and internal chaos and uncertainty currently going on in my world and the world at large.

I couldn’t help but feel that When Marnie Was There pulling serious heartstrings. We are no strangers to grief and loss in the family, after all. Somehow we find stories of loss, longing, discovery, and hopefulness for the future as relatable.

As with most Ghibli films, When Marnie Was There is about journey, growth and discovery, full of relatable characters, emotional depth, and stunning visuals.

Ghibli films mostly do not end with characters staying in one place. After their profound encounters, they move forward and move on. And the endings are often intentionally vague about what happens next.

When Marnie Was There was meant to be a goodbye for Studio Ghibli. However, one might now see it as an end of an era, with what is reportedly a new style and medium for Ghibli in upcoming films (e.g. 3D animation).

Maybe after our profound experiences with Ghibli’s signature style for the past four decades, it is now up to us to move forward and move on, and to look forward to what’s coming next.