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Anna is withdrawn, asthmatic, and convinced she exists outside the invisible circle everyone else occupies. Sent to the countryside for her health, she becomes fixated on an abandoned mansion across the marsh and the blonde girl who appears there, Marnie, who seems to know her already. Their friendship deepens across a summer that keeps slipping between the present and something older, and the eventual explanation reframes Anna's isolation as something with roots considerably deeper than she was ever told. Every answer she finds reframes the loneliness she assumed was simply her nature.
⚠ Background — may contain spoilers
Directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi and adapted from Joan G. Robinson's English novel, When Marnie Was There was the final Studio Ghibli film released before the studio's extended production hiatus following Hayao Miyazaki's announced retirement. It earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature. The film's treatment of loneliness, belonging, and the specific alienation of a child who feels unwanted is notably direct for the studio, and it has been widely embraced for the ambiguity of its central relationship. Its emotional directness about feeling unwanted is notably unguarded for the studio.
