Review: 5 Centimeters per Second

Several friends had recommended 5 Centimeters per Second. I finally caved in and sat down with Cheez-Its and a cream soda to watch it. The story depicts the growing apart of a boy, Takaki, and a girl, Akari, as they get older. The title is the rate at which a cherry blossom falls. This I take to be sybolic of Takaki and Akari's relationship. They start to fall together but eventually drift apart, like falling cherry blossoms. I may be looking too much into this. Anywhosit, the film from an artistic perspective is wonderful. The scenes are cut and designed beautifully. This film does not fall short of symbolism. However, I still did not really like the film. My main problem is that I do not believe in the depth of the relationship between Akari and Takaki. There are only a few shots from their time together and they do not make me believe that they were good friends. This makes the rest of the film hard to believe and get in to. There needed to be more developement of the relationship at the start. They needed to show the happiness of the relationship during their childhood more instead of jumping right into the sadness of their departure.