Following on the heels of last year’s Japanese anime success Your Name comes another young adult-skewed release. And while it lacks the formal ambition of Your Name and its exquisite visual impact, A Silent Voice has an appealing lush, wallowing emotional embrace.
Adapted, slightly inelegantly, from a manga comic, A Silent Voice deals with hot-button topics of bullying and disability. A boy grows up to regret his cruelty as a child who bullied a deaf classmate. He seeks her out to make amends, but can their friendship survive the guilt and self-loathing accrued from the past? So many tears are shed, you might need to sponge yourself down afterwards, but there are some lovely moments. I was particularly struck by the evocative framing – the camera avoids eye contact, focusing, like a shy adolescent, on bruised knees and scuffed shoes.
