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THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

What I like about Mari Okada is that I always leave with something new to reflect on regarding familial relationships. This is no different, but compared to her past work, Her Blue Sky trudges awkwardly just to get there.

At most I appreciate its restraint by trying to show and not tell its story, but I had to sit through the first 30 minutes with characters carrying a scene solely on the back of "Eh. Ehhh?'s" before it found enough footing for conversations to have any decent weight without it. It's very rough in this regard, and I had to suspend more of ... my disbelief hoping that the next scene would make me care.

And it eventually does, though in a spindly act of asking me to connect the tiny bits to understand the whole. It is in the film's second act where I was able to grasp what Okada was going for when she introduces her main conceit in Shinno, who compared to the rest of the characters is eloquent and charismatic enough to make characters like Aoi reflect towards the direction that brings her closest to her sister's feelings.

That's what makes the third act a sight to behold. My initial annoyance towards the main girl Aoi Aioi for sticking out as an edgelord with a bass soon turned to fascination by watching how her hopes and dreams fuel her actions, and by the end, the film rewards me with enough grace to fully understand her and her relationship with her sister, who for 13 years had raised Aoi alone.

By the end of the film, there wasn't a character I didn't like, and I had felt like I'd grown into this experience along with Aoi Aioi.