Your Name.

At first glance, the plot of Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name. seems like a body-switch comedy concocted for the lowest-rung Wayans siblings: a small-town girl and a big-city boy suddenly find themselves switching bodies, meddling in each other’s lives and gradually falling in love. But the result is more like a Studio Ghibli version of an emotionally loaded, apocalyptically metaphysical mindfuck like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or Donnie Darko. Your Name. is Shinkai’s fifth feature film, based on his novel of the same name, and although only 44 years old, Shinkai has also been active in the worlds of commercials, short films, video games and manga. Given that prolific output, it’s stunning that he could produce something filled with so much honesty and integrity. It’s the rare work of art that can base an extraordinarily powerful moment of emotional catharsis on compulsive boob-squeezing, but that’s the miracle of this movie. D.B.