Today, we watched When Marnie Was There, the most recent Ghibli film to date. It was released in 2014, and got some quite surprisingly critical admiration. I say surprising because frankly, we weren't fans.
Anna is adopted and has asthma. Because of this, she feels very different from other kids. Her mother (who she still calls auntie until the very end of the film) sends her to relatives in the country to hopefully improve her asthma a bit. While there, Anna befriends a very obviously ghost girl named Marnie. Marnie only appears at night, she appears and disappears like magic, and sometimes, only appears in Anna's dreams. Yeah, ghost all the way.
This is technically not a bad movie, but my idea of what was happening crashed so hard against what actually happened, I had no choice but to be greatly annoyed.
What I thought was happening was a queer coming-of-age story. I thought Anna felt different not because she was adopted and had asthma (which are perfectly valid reasons for feeling different, don't get me wrong), but because she was gay. She didn't like hanging out with other people, she didn't have any friends at school, she seemed secretive and withdrawn from pretty much everyone around her (in one jarring scene, she calls a girl she just met a "fat pig" for looking at her lantern festival wish without permission, which yes, is quite jerky, but maybe not worthy of name calling), and she only really opens up when she meets Marnie. Anna and Marnie proceed to spend secretive nights together, sharing secrets, going on small adventures, missing each other when they're not together, and in two separate scenes, saying they love each other.
It turns out, however, Marnie isn't a potential love interest at all; she's Anna's dead grandmother! What a ridiculous twist!
I understand that my reading was way off the mark, and that it may be unique to me, and I knew going in that this was yet another Ghibli film based on a novel. What I didn't know was that novel was published in 1967, when a queer coming-of-age story was practically unheard of.
So yeah. Take my dislike of this film with a grain of salt. You may enjoy more than me simply because you didn't start out with a wildly different premise in your head.
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