The Identity Crisis of "Fireworks" | Movie Review
In the past couple years, I've come to learn that not having any expectations for a piece of media can result in an enriching experience unlike any other. One of the most vivid experiences I've ever had with a film was with Makoto Shinkai's 5 Centimeters Per Second. Not having any expectations going into the film, I was unexpectedly hit hard with Shinkai's incredible emotional storytelling. Moreover, 5 Centimeters proved to me that stories in any medium can discuss and express emotions in a limitless capacity.
I immediately became a fan of Shinkai's work, along with any other authors that are inspired and/or influenced Shinkai's craft. Enter Fireworks, an anime film originally released last year in Japan, and just finished making its premiere theatrical run in the U.S..
Fireworks' marketing in the U.S. highly emphasized the film having the involvement of Genki Kawamura, a producer that was also involved with Shinkai's latest film, Your Name. This alone was enough to attract myself and many other anime film enthusiasts towards Fireworks. As with my positive experience with 5 Centimeters, I walked into Fireworks with no expectations, looking forward to what the film would offer.
Perhaps we could expect an emotionally gripping story that could be on a similar level of Shinkai's masterful craft. Or so the film's U.S. marketing wanted to make viewers think. In actuality, Fireworks is a deliberately frustrating film - one that believes it's smarter and more emotional than it actually is.
The film centers around Norimichi and his friends, who are debating whether fireworks are round or flat when looked at from the side. After Norimichi and Yusuke compete in a swim race against each other, Nazuna, an introverted girl that Yusuke has feelings for, asks him to watch the fireworks with her later that evening. However, Yusuke later decides to watch the fireworks with his friends in order to end their debate on the shape of fireworks, effectively ditching Nazuna. Norimichi later encounters Nazuna, learning that she has to move to another town. After walking with her, Norimichi sees Nazuna get forcibly taken away by her mother, and what follows is a story revolving around time travel, humor, and a budding relationship between Norimichi and Nazuna.
The most crucial aspect of a film that discusses romance and emotions is creating characters that the audience likes and cares about. Fireworks doesn't understand this, and as a result, this film collapses in on itself. We spend most time of the film with Norimichi and Nazuna, and yet both of these characters feel remarkably hollow. Norimichi as the lead, in particular, really hurts this film due to how little there is to his character.
Nazuna fares a little better with having the conflict of her family moving despite her wishing to continue living where she is. But this itself is a bit confusing, given that its directly stated by Nazuna's mother that she doesn't have many friends. Moreover, we see that Nazuna doesn't seem to be noticed by her peers at school. This makes it unclear as to why Nazuna doesn't want to move, but perhaps more importantly, this is the only real exploration of Nazuna's character. Beyond wanting to run away and elope with Norimichi (something that's introduced very quickly and awkwardly), Nazuna's character feels just as hollow as Norimchi's.
So we have a romance film in which both of our leads have very little to their characters. This makes the growing romance between Norimichi and Nazuna feel completely meaningless. When we have two characters that we don't have a reason to care about, then we especially don't have a reason to care about them being together. So not only do we have no reason to care about the romance in a romance-focused film, but the romance that we do see blossom between the two leads feels rushed, awkward, and not very believable.
This pairs with a clumsily-handled time travel mechanic of the film. In the second act, we see Norimichi turn back to time to revert past events to make a different timeline. What makes this plot element feel clumsy is its lack of establishment and consequences. It's never made clear if Norimichi is aware that he's time travelling, or that he remembers events from alternate timelines. At least, this is the case until the third act, where Norimichi suddenly acknowledges and explains events that occurred in other timelines, leaving us to infer, but not definitively know, that other characters aren't aware of Norimichi's manipulation with time.
On top of that, the consequences of Norimichi's time travel seem rather light. It's stated that Norimichi's manipulation of timelines is actually him creating "other worlds", but the film never describes what necessarily makes these "other worlds" different from our own. Sure, we see that fireworks are different shapes in these different worlds, but...that seems to be it. This film's ideas of time travel and creating other worlds feel remarkably half-baked - these ideas feel under-explored and lazily integrated into the film's narrative, which drastically hurts the entire film.
As previously stated, Norimichi and his friends discuss the shape of fireworks and go to investigate and confirm whether they're flat or round. This is a sideplot throughout the film, and one that garners a sizable amount of screen time, all for no real payoff. This endeavor never feels like it goes anywhere and seems to only exist to arbitrarily create conflict just because there needs to be some kind of conflict for Norimichi. When watching, I wanted to trust the film and hope that this sideplot would maybe use this fireworks being round or flat as some kind of metaphor, but this film let me down in that regard. This portion of the film makes you think that it's going somewhere and that it'll mean something, but instead, it doesn't feel like it has any meaning. It merely ends up feeling like a general waste of time.
This leads into the main problem with Fireworks - this film is convinced in a delusion. Fireworks is convinced that it's an intelligent, admirable film because it looks and sounds like one on the surface. Beyond that brittle surface, however, is a film doesn't actually do anything to earn that status. Fireworks boasts two leads that feel radically underdeveloped, and yet it still expects you to care about their relationship, even though you have no idea what would make them compatible with each other, all leading into a third act that entirely rings hollow.
It feels as if Fireworks suffers from an identity crisis. Since it looks and sounds like a Makoto Shinkai film on the surface, Fireworks wrongfully assumes that it doesn't have to earn your emotional engagement with the film. What results is a film that feels both incompetent and full of itself.
I don't often like being so negative towards a film, especially when I can see that there was some effort put in here. Visually speaking, Fireworks is impressive when it focuses on 2D animation, though it's riddled with some occasionally ugly CG that's awfully distracting. In addition, the score is quite enjoyable, but at the same time, there's a musical number about halfway through the film that feels jarring and awkward.
But Fireworks' most crucial flaw is in its writing. With underdeveloped characters, plot threads that don't go anywhere, and a needlessly ambiguous ending, Fireworks feels more like a first draft of a screenplay than a finished film. While there is occasionally some visual humor that lands, there's also a lot of written humor that doesn't land, and ends up feeling immature more than anything else. Fireworks' script tries to juggle a heartfelt romance, a time travel mechanic, and humor, but doesn't work or commit to any of these, causing the film to fall flat, making it extremely difficult to recommend.
If anything, Fireworks serves as a reminder that, no matter how inspired and influenced you may be from another's work, you still have to make something that works and earns things by itself. The inspiration or influence isn't enough to carry a film and make it work - Fireworks is proof of that.
Final Grade: F
Thank you for reading! What did you think of Fireworks? As always, join the conversation and let me know!
