Kimi No Na Wa (aka Your Name) (2016)

As a comet approaches Earth, a girl in a small Japanese mountain village and a boy living in Tokyo suddenly find that they are switching bodies intermittently but with very little memory of the process. But this is only the beginning of a complex tale of connection. Directed by Makoto Shinkai, this piece of Japanese anime was a huge success in Japan last year and at this time is the 4th highest grossing film of all time in Japan. The film changes tone several times during its running time. It's starts out as a seemingly teen body switching comedy before turning into a disaster movie and ending as an emotional love story. The animation is drop dead stunning and that in itself is reason to seek out the movie but its narrative, balancing humor and an intricate emotional core, has a resonance that propels the film. The only downside is that Shinkai drags out the inevitable ending a bit longer than necessary. Alas, the theater I saw the matinee was showing the dubbed into English version during the day and the original Japanese language version (which I would have preferred) during the evening.