-Written by John Cajio.
My Neighbors the Yamadas is a film that does not suck. A heartwarming, comedic, slice-of-life look at a typical middle class family in Japan, My Neighbors the Yamadas relies on a highly stylized art direction, strong stories, clever humor, and relatability to pull the viewer in.
In a clever move by Writer-Director Isao Takahata, the film consists of a series of short vignettes—some just a couple of minutes long while some others approach ten minutes in length. Each episode focuses on one or more members of the Yamada family in a variety of situations. One episode, for example, focuses on Matsuko (Yukiji Asaoko/Molly Shannon) as she tries to be a lazy housewife while her husband and family patriarch Takashi (Touru Masuoka/Jim Belushi) works. Matsuko’s attempts to manipulate her young daughter, Nonoko (Naomi Uno/Liliana Mumy), and her mother (and family matriarch), Shige (Masako Araki/Tress MacNeille), into doing housework for her fails miserably, but Matsuko quite ably manipulates her adolescent son, Noboru (Hayata Isobata/Daryl Sabara).
Other vignettes deal with other interfamily relationships and situations. There’s Noboru’s burgeoning relationship with a girl from school that Matsuko and Shige cannot help but involve themselves in; the time that the family goes to the mall and accidentally leaves Nonoko there; a hilarious short where Takashi and Matsuko jockey for control of the television; the time that Takashi is given the unenviable task of confronting some bikers who’ve taken up residence in the neighborhood; a scene where Takashi and Noboru attempt to bond over a game of catch; the joys and the perils of age through scenes focused on Shige. And so on. Each vignette is independent and can stand on its own. But Takahata uses the final vignette to tie everything up in a nice, neat bow with a unifying message about the power of the love of family. It’s a pretty amazing setup and payoff for what would otherwise be a fairly mundane slice-of-life affair.
Contrary to most of the rest of Studio Ghibli’s oeuvre, My Neighbors the Yamadas employs a unique art direction. This film is presented in a comic strip sketch style. It often appears hastily drawn with the edges of the frame empty. In scenes involving the Yamadas in a large group setting, the Yamadas always appear as full fledged drawn characters, while extras in the scene sometimes appear as little more than blobs with two dots and a line indicating where the eyes and the mouth are. This art direction lends itself well to the film. It’s easy to imagine each vignette as a daily comic strip. It also helps to set up punchlines. In one scene, Takashi announces he’s going out and Matsuko asks him to go to the store, giving him a detailed list of items to buy. The camera pushes in on Takashi’s face as he recites it back, confident in his memory. Matsuko is highly skeptical. The camera stays on Takashi’s face for a moment before he begins to recite the shopping list again. Except when the camera pulls back out, he’s taking his coat off and after reciting the shopping list perfectly, he says, “See? I remembered the list. I just forgot to do the shopping.” Any other art style and I don’t think the joke I just poorly described would have landed as well as it does in the film, but thanks to the comic strip aesthetic it’s downright hysterical.
Music plays an integral part of the film as well. The score, composed by Akiko Yano, consists primarily of playful piano lines interspersed with quotes of well-known classical composers including Mahler, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Bach, Mozart, and more. The classical music pieces are sometimes used diegetically, such as the scene where an exhausted Matsuko is napping hard on the table while the radio is blasting the thrilling finale to Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, causing their neighbor—working in her yard near the Yamada’s open window—to comment that she didn’t realize Matsuko listened to Mahler. My favorite musical moment, however, occurs early on when Noboru experiences something of an existential crisis. The opening trumpet solo to the first movement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 begins to play. It’s especially hilarious when you know that the first movement of Mahler’s mammoth and pivotal 5th symphony is a funeral march.
Writer-Director Isao Takahata tries his hand at a lighthearted comedic film with My Neighbors the Yamadas after creating three objectively serious films previously. He continues to succeed because he brings a strong sense of pathos and empathy to the film even as he, his team, and the cast make one laugh early and often. It’s not always perfect. Some vignettes drag on a bit too long and some of the jokes fall flat. But, at the end of the day, it’s very easy to relate to the Yamadas. And because it’s easy to relate to the Yamadas, when Takahata deploys his master stroke that ties all of the otherwise loosely connected vignettes together in the final moments of the film, one has to admire his vision for the film, his dedication to the craft, and his willingness to deviate from what’s worked for him previously. It succeeds here.
Written & Directed by Isao Takahata.
Starring Touru Masuoko/Jim Belushi, Yukiji Asaoko/Molly Shannon, Masako Araki/Tress MacNeille, Hayata Isobata/Daryl Sabara, Naomi Uno/Liliana Mumy, etc.
8/10 = WORTH RENTING OR BUYING (IT DOES NOT SUCK)
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