In Your Name, a privileged teen boy from Tokyo and a small-town girl wake up one morning inhabiting the other person’s body.
Body-swapping fantasies – once a staple of 1980s American teen cinema – were played out until last year when Makoto Shinkai's animated dramedy Your Name became Japan's second-highest-grossing animated film of all time behind Miyazaki's Spirited Away. With Shinkai's film reaching a wider release, it's pleasing to see such hype is warranted. It begins with a simple idea: a privileged teenage boy from Tokyo and a frustrated small-town girl wake up one morning inhabiting the other person's body. They don't know each other; their memories are wiped each night, and it has something to do with a passing comet. This concept could be used for stock shenanigans worthy of a John Green novel, but Shinkai unleashes a twist early on so clever and cerebral that J.J. Abrams and Christopher Nolan will kick themselves for not thinking of it first. That twist turns things from a teen film to an adult film. If it could rectify one small plot hole and tone down its peppy pop-punk soundtrack, this would be a perfect animated film.