A couple a weekends ago, my family sat down and watched the anime movie "Your Name". The basic idea is that high school boy Taki from Tokyo and high school girl Mitsuha from a small Japanese village randomly switch bodies with each other when they fall asleep. This leads to some pretty dramatic changes to their lives, as each tried to influence the other in what they see as a better direction. As this goes on, Taki and Mitsuha communicate back and forth via journals on their phones, and begin to find comfort in each other.
The two never speak or meet face to face, and when Taki tries to call Mitusha's phone, the call doesn't go through. Then, as suddenly as it began, the switching stops and we're left with Taki trying to find out why this all happened in the first place and what happened to Mitsuha. That's where the twist comes in, and what a twist it is. I'm not going to spoil it for you but I can say that I didn't see it coming and it is handled beautifully.
This is a movie that could have worked in both live action and animation, but I think the animation gives it the freedom to do some things that would have been harder to do in live action. The writing and acting are terrific and you really get sucked into the story. I think that all three of us gasped at the reveal of what was going on, and that's not something I can say very often.
I would highly recommend this to, well, everyone. It's probably not great for young children, but there's nothing objectionable. Kira, who is 9 at the time of this writing, was completely engrossed in the movie and barely spoke through the run time.
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