Drifting Home

 A movie from 2022, this one can be currently found on Netflix, and Noshi and me picked it for some evening entertainment.

 

Now, I must say in front, it is weird, it raises questions, and it put me often on the wrong foot.

 

This movie is about two 11 year old friends, Kosuke and Natsume, who have spend their entire childhood together in an appartment building.  Those buildings are set for demolishment, but they often return there.  One day, Natsume in a discussion with Kosuke seems to fall of the chimney, as a sudden burst of rain sweeps the building away.

 

They find the building adrift in an ocean, and together with their friends and a mysterious boy named Noppo need to find their way home.  They have to learn to work together in a coming of age story, and make peace with their past.  When the building is damaged by another one, it starts making water and they leave aboard a raft.  But Noppo can't go with them, as he "is" the building's spirit, Natsume returning to his side.  This makes the other ones leaving the raft to save her with the help of a floating Ferris wheel and it's spirit.

 

Arriving at an island, they learn the voyage was all about Noppo getting there, a place where the children spirits of the buildings live in peace, and the building itself magically transports back to the now.  The children can't explain what happened, though they have pictures of their adventures that Kosuke took with his deceased grandfather's camera, adding to the mystery.

 

Now, the movie gave me serious Studio Ghibli vibes in the magical voyage, but somehow I was steeling myself during the movie for a "Your Lie in April" ending (if you know, you know.  And cry...) as I thought it would be a dying Natsume living out a final dreamstate adventure with her friends as she was last seen falling of the chimney in the "normal" world.  But luckily, it wasn't that, and it seemed they where indeed swooped away before anything could happen to her.

 

A really lovely story, and well worth the watch.  Definitly far better then anything that can be found these days on western streams in my opinion.