When Marnie Was There (2014) Ava Acres, Kathy Bates, Bob Bergen, Taylor Autumn Bertman, Ellen Burstyn, Geena Davis, Ashley Johnson, Catherine O'Hara, John C. Reilly, Hailee Steinfeld, Vanessa Williams Movie Review

When Marnie Was There (2014)   3/53/53/53/53/5


When Marnie Was There (2014)

Anna's Mysterious Mansion

Anna is a withdrawn 12 year old who suffers from poor health due to asthma, which is why her mother sends her to stay with some relatives who live by the coast as the clean air will help. Anna also meets a young girl who calls herself Marnie and who says she lives in a crumbling mansion which looks over the marsh. It is through this friendship with Marnie that Anna starts to open up but the question is whether or not Marnie is real or not as thoughts of her and the mansion start to dominate Anna's life.

I am a fan of Studio Ghibli movies, the originality of the stories, the craftsmanship of the animation work and the fact it is usually a young girl is the central character makes them some thing to look forwards to when a new one comes out. But I am not one of those fans who instantly rate every Studio Ghibli movie as exceptional because of everything I have just mentioned and as such I find myself having watched "When Marnie Was There" and been left not so much disappointed but was hoping for more from it.

Now "When Marnie Was There" ticks all the usual boxes when it comes to a Studio Ghibli animation with that hand drawn animation work being beautiful. Maybe it isn't as creatively beautiful as you find in some of their movies but the craftsmanship of the artists is still plain to sea. And the storyline with this withdrawn girl coming out of her shell, well there certainly is plenty of charm to it. The thing is that the whole storyline of the old mansion and a question as to whether someone is real or not is all a little too familiar for me. And I think that is why I wasn't drawn in to this movie like I normally would be as I could predict certain things would happen.

What this all boils down to is that "When Marnie Was There" delivers all the beauty you expect from a Studio Ghibli movie and again gives us a troubled young girl as the central character. But for some reason this failed to captivate me in the same way the best Studio Ghibli movies do.


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