Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Brainsbell The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

JLRVancouver "When Marnie Was There" is a strikingly beautiful animated feature from the renowned Studio Ghibli. Based on a British novel of the same name, the story follows Anna, a troubled teenager who finds friendship and ultimately revelation in Marnie, a mysterious young girl who seems to live both in Anna's world and in her dreams. Like all Ghibli productions, the animation is lush, detailed and fluid. The voice work in the English version I watched is good despite being somewhat flat and generic at times. I very much like Studio Ghibli movies but find in general that anime adds more to fantasy films (where it can make unreal real, such as "Howl's Moving Castle" or "Spirited Away") than it does to more 'realistic' films such as "When Marnie Was There". Despite that, and being both the wrong gender and decades away from the target audience, I really enjoyed, and would recommend, "When Marnie Was There".

kevinxip This is one of Ghibli's most beautiful movie. Knowing other's childhood story is interesting and Ghibli did it beautifully. I don't read the original story, but its sure a good story made by Joan G. Robinson. To transform a foreign story and mixed it with local culture, this is a good example of solving the race problem for audience to relate. Some other movie just adapt a story from foreign country and use local actors to replace their original name, even completely killing the character like we found in The last airbender and hopefully not for Ghost in shell. From now on, Marnie is a part of my life that i'll never forget, even though she's just a fictional character. Ghibli made this character so unforgettable with her strong character. His childhood is really sad, when we know even the maid bully her and she rarely met her parents. This made a link between her and audience, we really felt sorry for this girl and so sad even more when we have told the complete story, her old days are even sadder.

politic1983 The great Hayao Miyazaki has announced his retirement from directing animated films with his Studio Ghibli a number of times, though he has often brought himself back to make just one more film. But now, it is not just the great man himself that is announcing closing for business, it is the Studio as a whole. Directed by one of the younger of six directors to have worked under the Studio Ghibli name, Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 'When Marnie was there' brings an end to three decades worth of anime, starting with 'Laputa: Castle in the Sky'. This film already, therefore, has a lot resting on its shoulders. Yonebayashi has worked on numerous Ghibli films in various animation roles, though his only previous film as a director with the Studio was 'Arrietty': not perhaps their strongest work. Like 'Arrietty' before it - and indeed other Ghibli films - 'When Marnie was there' is based on a British children's novel. The flat, isolated land of Norfolk has been replaced for the mountainous, isolated land of Hokkaido, with young, moody Anna, suffering from asthma, leaves her foster mother in Sapporo to stay with relatives in a small village from some much needed R and R. Troubled at home, Anna's troubles don't particularly ease, failing to fit in, lost in her imagination and sketch pad. Quickly she becomes fascinated by the 'Marsh House', an old mansion left in a state of disrepair. Becoming an obsession, she begins to imagine Marnie, the former daughter of the house many moons ago. Forming a bond with her imaginary companion, Anna begins to come to terms with her own situation at home.The film can be divided into three distinct sections for me: To start, as ever with a Ghibli film, the attention to detail is impeccable, with every pixel of the screen thoughtfully considered, making the animation as true to life as possible. It's once we move toward the film's middle that the level of visual detail starts to decrease a little as the storyline develops. This is where we hit the film's weakest point. As it's a Ghibli film, many might see this as magical and moving in a coming-of-age tale, though for me 'When Marnie was there' gets far too soppy, borderline lesbian and a little bit of a bore. Luckily, as the film draws to a conclusion, it is rescued somewhat as the storyline is rounded off.Up until the new millennium and 'Spirited Away', the direction of Ghibli films was tackled by-and-large by founders Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. Since then, however, younger directors have, at times, taken the reigns, leaving the films, while on the whole satisfying, a little more bumpy and inconsistent.But with the two founders now both old men, well deserving of the title 'retired', rather than letting the Studio slip into the hands of others, perhaps calling it a day is called for.politic1983.blogspot.co.uk

louissven It is not very manly to say that but honestly I cried a bit while watching it. This movie is very good because the animations are astonishing, the music is very good and fit perfectly in the moment, the main characters feel true, and by that I mean they fit perfectly into their world, and the story is just perfect. BUT if you are going to watch this movie be prepared to feel like crap for 2 to 3 hours after watching it because it is not a light movie and you understand it in the first 30 minutes.Tl;Dr You must watch this movie at least once in your life but be prepared to feel like crap.