My Rating: 5.5/5
Official Information
Release Date: October 20, 2017
Box Office: $31.6 Million
Rating: 8.1/10 (IMDb) 94% (RT)
Audience: All, Not Rated
A Silent Voice is one of the best and most emotional movies I have ever watched, coming from someone who mostly watches action-packed SciFi movies. The film follows a deaf girl and her childhood bully on a mission to make up for his past. It’s a heartwarming film that will make you laugh in some parts and cry in others.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
The film opens with the teenage Shoya Ishida preparing to kill himself, which is rough to watch. We don’t know anything about his character yet, but it’s already heartbreaking. However, the movie jumps back in time to Shoya’s elementary school life. On my first watch, I was a bit confused about the timeline, but I was able to piece together what was going on as the movie progressed. The flashback (which is long, but important) introduces our secondary protagonist, Shoko Nishimya, a deaf girl who gets ruthlessly teased for her disability.
A Silent Voice does an excellent job of shifting the audience’s view of Shoya. At first, he seems like a hateable bully, but after the time jump, it’s a complete 360. During the flashback, Shoya torments Shoko without remorse, breaking her hearing aids and teasing her for the way talks. Meanwhile, he deals with being bullied by his group of friends. The saying “hurt people hurt people” is certainly true.
As a film that covers a wide period of time in its characters’ lives, A Silent Voice shows us how some people can change for the better, while unfortunately, others don’t. Shoya’s reputation as a bully follows him into high school, despite his growing remorse for his actions. It’s in this part that we understand why he was preparing for suicide in the film’s intro. Thinking death is the only option, he decides to tie off the loose ends in his life before he commits suicide.
In A Silent Voice, the characters of both the bully and the bullied are relatable. We’ve all felt remorse for things that are in the past, and Shoya feels like a real person going through real hardships, and not just a one-dimensional bully. His extreme anxiety leads him to feel that everyone at his school is against him, which is represented by Xs appearing over the characters' faces. I thought this was a creative way to visualize the way Shoya feels, and it lets the audience know who Shoya trusts (the people without the Xs).
Further into the film, Shoya and Shoko cross paths again, as Shoya tries to make up for his past actions before committing suicide. What he doesn’t know is that Shoko will end up saving him. Shoya apologizes and slowly befriends Shoko. Things seem to be going well for our protagonists as Shoko unknowingly helps Shoya see the good in life, while he helps her reconnect with old acquaintances from elementary school, both friends and bullies.
Two minor characters in A Silent Voice, Miyoko and Naoka, are polar opposites. While Miyoko does everything in her power to make Shoko comfortable, even trying to learn sign language, Naoka makes Shoko feel unwelcome, clearly expressing her hate for her. Naoka is a frustrating character that makes the audience truly want her to get out of Shoko’s life.
While Naoka was my least favorite character, Shoya’s friend Tomohiro is probably my favorite. He’s a foil of the shy and depressed Shoya: energetic, goofy, and the kind of person you’d want to be friends with in real life.
The first half of A Silent Voice does a great job setting up the characters without feeling like it drags. But the real conflict comes in when the utterly, absolutely hateable Naoka goes too far. In one of the most heartbreaking scenes (there are a lot of them), set in a Ferris wheel at the festival, Naoka blames Shoko for Shoya’s troubles, telling Shoko she hates her and even going as far as hitting her across the face. Luckily, Shoko’s protective sister records the encounter, and when the truth gets out, it tears the friend group apart.
A Silent Voice is an excellent film for a few reasons, and one of the biggest ones is its portrayal of mental abuse, bullying, and suicide without sugarcoating the problems in society. Nakoa pushes Shoko past her breaking point, and likely without even realizing it, contributes to her suicide attempt during the film’s climax. Shoya returns to Shoko’s apartment to find her seconds away from leaping off the balcony. In an edge-of-your-seat, suspenseful moment, Shoya desperately tries to stop her, barely grabbing her hand in time, but slipping over the railing himself during the process.
During the dark few seconds after his fall, I genuinely questioned whether Shoya was going to be killed off. I was truly shocked during this scene and began to tear up a little. Luckily, Shoya survives the fall, and in a twist of fate, is rescued by his bullies. Arriving back to school after his time in the hospital, Shoya receives a warm welcome and begins to see that not everyone is against him. In the finale, Shoya has a new perspective on life, and the Xs over everyone’s faces disappear.
I thought that Shoko and Shoya were going to get together in A Silent Voice, but they didn’t, and perhaps that’s for the best. They still have some problems they need to work through, and it’s heartwarming to see their friendship grow. A Silent Voice was worth the watch and is now one of my favorite movies.