Synopsis
Upon being sent to live with relatives in the countryside due to an illness, an emotionally distant adolescent girl becomes obsessed with an abandoned mansion and infatuated with a girl who lives there - a girl who may or may not be real.
Your Movie Library
Cast
- Sara TakatsukiAnna Sasaki (voice)
- Kasumi ArimuraMarnie (voice)
- Nanako MatsushimaYoriko Sasaki (voice)
- Susumu TerajimaKiyomasa Oiwa (voice)
- Toshie NegishiSetsu Oiwa (voice)
- Ryoko MoriyamaElderly Lady (voice)
- Kazuko YoshiyukiNanny (voice)
- Hitomi KurokiHisako (voice)
- Hiroyuki MorisakiArt Teacher (voice)
- Takuma OtooNeighborhood Association Officer (voice)
Recommendations
- 83
Entertainment Weekly
The animation is dazzling. - 80
Variety
Yonebayashi’s open-hearted tale, more than any other Ghibli offering, could conceivably have worked just as well in live-action, and yet the tender story gains so much from the studio’s delicate, hand-crafted approach. - 80
Village Voice
At its most beautiful, Yonebayashi's picture is about the magic of female friendship at its purest. - 80
The Dissolve
It’s a quiet film of modest narrative ambitions and simple shifts. But its technical and visual ambitions couldn’t be higher. It’s as if Ghibli is still trying to raise its own bar, so that even if it’s going out, it’s reminding viewers what they’d be missing. - 80
Los Angeles Times
It deals with friendship, loneliness, abandonment and forgiveness, and though its curious narrative arc means you're never sure exactly where it's going, the film works up a considerable emotional charge by the end. - 75
Slant Magazine
The film at first plays like a refresher and throwback to Hayao Miyazaki's Kiki's Delivery Service, before revealing itself to be less minimal than minor. - 75
New York Post
Subtle, sometimes really sad and honest about the struggles of adolescence, Marnie is a worthy last entry from Ghibli before the studio reportedly goes on hiatus. - 70
The Hollywood Reporter
A beautifully animated tale of the growing friendship and occasionally rather cloying emotional travails of two 12-year-old girls.
