Fireworks

    Fireworks
    2017

    Synopsis

    Moshimo, Japan. The annual fireworks festival is about to take place and a group of schoolboys, arguing over whether they are round or flat when viewed from different angles, set out to find it out.

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    Cast

    • Suzu HiroseNazuna Oikawa (voice)
    • Masaki SudaNorimichi Shimada (voice)
    • Mamoru MiyanoYūsuke Azumi (voice)
    • Shintaro AsanumaJun'ichi (voice)
    • Toshiyuki ToyonagaKazuhiro (voice)
    • Yuki KajiMinoru (voice)
    • Shin-ichiro MikiNazuna's Mother Fiancé (voice)
    • Kana HanazawaTeacher Miura (voice)
    • Takahiro SakuraiTeacher Mitsuishi (voice)
    • Michiko NeyaNorimichi's Mother (voice)

    Recommendations

    • 75

      TheWrap

      Fireworks takes you on that little journey. It may affect you deeply, or it may just come and go, a fizzling sentimental aside in an otherwise hectic day. But it’s hard to deny that it approaches its fantastical story with maturity and grace, and a thoughtfulness about what it would truly mean to leap into a “what if” and seriously consider never coming out again.
    • 60

      The Guardian

      It’s confusing and disorientating but brings back dreamy teen angst like the strongest of madeleines.
    • 50

      Screen Daily

      There are more engaging fireworks, or at least small sparks, when the film begins to dig into the feelings, friendships and jealousies of its two main protagonists.
    • 45

      Film Journal International

      Despite its novel plot, and some lovely music and incidental artwork—the title fireworks, the rugged seaside and that glittery magic ball are all beautifully rendered—the film quickly drags.
    • 40

      Los Angeles Times

      For all its temporal twists and lyrical, sometimes remarkably photorealistic backdrops, Shinbo’s movie has none of “Your Name’s” narrative intricacy or stunning visual richness, much less its radical cross-gender empathy. These Fireworks look depressingly flat from any angle.
    • 40

      The New York Times

      The unrealized potential makes the rote line style and stagnant backdrops seem all the blander.
    • 40

      Village Voice

      Where Your Name’s star-crossed protagonists were fully formed characters who held equal weight in the narrative, Fireworks is very much told from the male point of view, and Nazuna seldom rises above “free-spirited object of desire.”
    • 38

      Slant Magazine

      Akiyuki Shinbo and Nobuyuki Takeuchi's time-travel device mostly just exists to complicate what is, at heart, a trite and sexist love story.