Review of Suzume / すずめの戸締まり, directed by Makoto Shinkai

For some reason, I just never happen to watch anime movies on my own. It was when I figured out I could watch animated movies through my Kanopy account, which is accessible on my smart TV, that I began watching more animated movies lately. However, they just took the option of watching movies on this television through Kanopy away in May 2024.

Anyways, the first time I watched Suzume I was working as a film critic over at MovieWeb. I did that job for several years, and got to interview some really cool people and filmmakers along the way. Suzume was one oft he movies I covered before. it was released in theaters.

I’d specifically requested it back then because it was a Makoto Shinkai movie. I was recently thinking about his filmography, which has caused me to go down a little rabbit hole of rewatching his movies just for the sake of it. However formulaic they may be, there’s certainly an appeal to them.

So here are my thoughts from my second rewatch of this film! Let’s get into the review.

A girl and boy save Japan from a series of disastrous events through some magical doors.

Our main and titular character in this movie is Suzume, who is 17 and living in Kyushu. She resides in a home with her aunt, and the year is 2023. One day, though, she’s heading to school when she spots a strange boy in an abandoned area. She goes up to him, and then tells him about an abandoned resort nearby.

Turns out he’s looking for a door, and he heads off to the resort. Suzume secretly follows him, where she then finds a door standing by itself in midair. She opens it out of curiosity, and discovers it leads to a field lit by stars, but when she tries to take a step forward, she can’t get to it.

Suzume also falls over a cat statue, which turns into a real cat. She heads to school after this event, but during her lunch period, she sees a column of smoke coming from where she just came from. Scared, she runs back and discovers the boy, who is trying to close the door. She helps him close it, but because of all of the smoke, an earthquake occurs.

They head back to her house together, where he reveals himself to be Souta, and he is someone called a Closer. They’re supposed to find these doors and lock them, lest a worm from another dimension will be let loose. If that happens, it will cause earthquakes all around Japan.

The cat from earlier also appears, then turns Souta into a chair of all things. Souta, now a chair with only three legs, tries to chase after the cat, and they all end up on a ferry. Suzume and Souta watch as the cat jumps into a nearby ship, leaving them there. Souta then reveals the cat is a keystone, and the worm was let go because Suzume moved the cat statue.

From here, once they reach Ehime, they find the location of the worm and close the next door. After that, they head to Kobe, and find a door behind a ferris wheel. The next stop after this is Tokyo, and Souta first asks Suzume to go to his apartment.

We then launch into a story time about his family history, as he is the descendant of the person who would lock all of the doors to the Ever After, a place where souls go after death. If the worm was let go, it would cause destruction like the 1923 earthquake in Japan.

It’s then Suzume notices the worm in the sky, and Souta turns himself into a keystone to lock the next door. Suzume wakes up in a shrine and realizes Souta is in the Ever After. She visits Souta’s grandfather, who reveals to her that because she can see the worm and the Ever After, that meant she once went through to there herself.

Now on a mission to find the door she entered through initially, Suzume realizes it might be from the 2011 earthquake in Tohoku. Suzume lost her mother and home in that earthquake. Along the way though she runs into Tomoya, a friend of Souta’s, and her aunt who wants to bring her home.

She runs away from her aunt and they all continue to Tohoku. Suzume arrives at her old home, where she finds the door in its ruins. There, she encounters the worm, but the cat sacrifices himself to be the keystone. Souta and Suzume then use Daijin and Sadaijin, the two keystones (earlier Sadaijin possessed Tamaki), to permanently seal the worm inside.

While in the Ever After, they also encounter Suzume from 12 years ago, and the present day Suzume decides to gift her a chair. She hopes this will help her overcome the tragedy, and the young Suzume heads back out into the real world. The present day Suzume and Souta return back to their homes.

The film ends with Suzume going to school and running into Souta along the way.

Overall Thoughts

Initially, when I first watched this, I thought this movie was way too formulaic. I still agree with those sentiments from past me, as it still very much feels like Makoto Shinkai is copying and pasting similar themes.

I do enjoy the references to the 2011 earthquake—I feel like we’re just starting to see the narratives emerging from such a tragedy, and I realized while rewatching this I haven’t seen anything from that time.

All in all, I think there is still so much beauty and wonder to appreciate from this movie. Go watch it if you haven’t already.

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