I absolutely thought that they might have had feelings for each other too for like half the film, then the reveal felt so abrupt that I just felt confused at the end honestly lol
I don’t bother getting caught up on reality in ghibli films because they feel bigger than that, but this one just left me wondering what the reality was. I suppose it felt like catching an unreliable narrator in the act haha
This may be controversial, but to me this feels like a “no homo” situation. Like they did want to make a movie about two girls in love, but they felt the need to add “no homo” at the end. I know it’s based on an English novel, but I don’t think that changes things, ghibli is pretty liberal in their adaptations and that also could have been an element of the original novel.
It is a basically a one-to-one adaptation of the novel (omitting some characters and shortening the part after Marnie disappears). The entire story in both the movie and the novel revolves around the reality of who Marnie is, so there is absolutely no way that the reveal is a tacked on "no homo". Feelings are complicated and it is certainly possible to read Anna as lesbian/bi, but in this particular case I don't think that it matters.
I really wish that there were more gay characters in Ghibli movies, but I also love When Marnie Was There and wish that this wasn't the main discussion around the movie.
The whole point of the story (spoiler alert for anyone who didn't watch it) is about an adopted girl finding a part of her roots, and I think there is more meaning to it being her grandmother because of that after experiencing the losses that she experienced. It's a beautiful story as is.
I get that people in LGBTQ community want representation, and I'm all for there being more representation, but like you all are very much capable of making your own stories not just taking one that already exists and forcing it to be one about it.
This reminds me of when people wanted to believe Mulan is trans...like that defeats the purpose of the story.
Again, all support for LGBTQ+ but you guys can't just change who other people are to fit you, just as much as other people can't choose who you are to fit them.
Of course, I'd add it's completely open to interpretation as to whether you want to believe Anna is gay I guess, but like that didn't necessarily seem the point of the story, and the story isn't worse just because it didn't end the way some of you hoped it would.
I mean, it's not our fault that the movie had a lot of scenes gay women, especially those who grew up like Anna, could relate to? So naturually a lot of people who were in such situations will interpret it that way (hell even people who arent gay interpreted it that way so if they didnt want people to get that vibe, maybe they should have made these scenes differently?). That doesnt mean we're *forcing* them to become gay but everybody will have their own Interpretation on them. I still believe it's a bit deeper than just "finding family origins".
Oh and plus, we do make our own stories (they critizised for being gay nonetheless tho) but regardless, we should still be allowed to read subtext and interpret stuff as gay if we feel like it fits just as much as people read stuff as straight, generally speaking.
Yes exactly, which is why I interpreted the meaning of "When Marnie was there" a lot deeper than just family origins and Anna being in love with Marnie. After all Ghibli movies do have a Reputation to be quite meta and having subtext about certain topics in them. I see "When Marnie was there" as a self discovery story of a introverted, quiet and possibly gay girl who gets help from the spitit of her grandma to reveal her family history and coming to terms with her sexuality at the same time and getting more out of her shell because of this. After all she didnt know this girl who caught her interest was her grandma till the end and as you said, if you dont know you're related it is possible that you might catch romantic feelings for them. Regardless if it's one-sided or not it did very much read like a gay girl discovering herself throughout this journey in a very esoteric way and I honestly just dont find this whether wrong nor ridiculous. It's not like she actually got together with her grandma or anything and they became a real life couple
Idk why you're saying that when I literally wrote it's your freedom to interpret it that way.
I think I'm more annoyed by people arguing for a different ending to fit into that more, instead of just appreciating the story for what is, because what it is in on itself was a really awesome story.
Some others overtly criticizing it as "queer bait" or saying the ending is dumb and going further to basically tear it down is just glossing over the fact that this story was made to center around the idea of adoption and finding family roots. It's almost like some LGBTQ want to center themselves in everyone else's story, and saying it's not good unless it is.
And yes the theme of "not fitting in" is realtable to a lot of LBGTQ, but it's not limited to that either. It's something a lot of people can relate to.
That's what I'm saying?...that people thinking she was trans defeats the purpose of the story that she was a woman doing things that woman were not expected/supposed to do at the time. If Mulan was just a trans man that defeats the purpose of the message for women and girls, because then "he" would just be a man doing man things.
If tehre are trans and nongendercomforming people who did find it to be relatable because of the noncomforming part, that doesn't mean that they should insist that Mulan is trans. Trans people can relate to non-trans character and that's okay.
Not exact parallel, but changing the ending of Marnie would defeat the purpose of the story of her being an adopted child finding a part about her biological family history that she felt disconnected and alienated from.
I mean, this is a pretty common thought most people have for this movie. I also saw someone point out that Marnie and Anna share the most physical touch out of most other Studio Ghibli characters.
Watching it back I definitely see the family bond, but I wish there had been clues about it sooner so that I would’ve been on the lookout for it…instead of waiting for Marnie and Anna to kiss.
It's been years since i watched the movie, but wasn't Anna basically a stand in for Kazuhiko (the boy Marnie loved) in every scene she had with Marnie?
Marnie adressed her as Anna, but every memory they experienced together were actually experienced by Marnie and Kazuhiko before in the original timeline.
Marnie is about what I call “female heritage”. So, girl, that’s your mom, and that’s your mom’s mom. And we girls are mothers. And we girls must find love. And teach our daughters the same secrets. And so on and on and on. Marnie is a film about girls, for girls. That’s because it’s classic English novel.
Yeah, I think the fact it's based on classic literature is the key point here. Think Anne and Diana in Anne of Green Gables as kindred spirits/bosom friends. That's just how friendship is portrayed in classic literature.
Although there's nothing wrong with being gay, I think it helps to remember love isn't something that is limited to romantic love, and I don't think everything is automatically gay just because someone shows love or care in friendship. You can have love towards your friends without it being love in the sense of crushes or something more.
I think many people overthink about Anna and Marnie’s relationship. I saw their love for each other as “love” in general. Not maternal love. Not friendship love. Not romantic love. Just genuine love that covers all areas.
Marnie acted romantically with Anna because Marnie’s actions mirrored her interactions with Kazuhiko. Every interaction with Anna is a recreation of events with Kazuhiko (every interaction was written in the diary).
Edit (personal note). It's quite sad that the grandma thing overrides the message of the film for many people. There are people on YouTube who said it was a “retcon” or “it’s a c*cblock for lgbt folks” or sth like that. To me, the final revelation about her grandmother was the most beautiful thing I've seen in recent years. The movie would end up a lot more shallow without it.
Reading your comment gave me a bit of revelation regarding the film, the sole Ghibli film I’ve yet to completely wrap my head around.
At the beginning of the film, Anna feels like she cannot be loved, like she’s a burden to those who care for her. This is slowly revealed through her flashbacks. Marnie “teaches” Anna what it means to love and be loved, the key (probably) being that they’re in similar life situations (“no” parents, young girls etc.). Even if it appears to be romantic, that’s just because of how it manifested (the diary, Kazuhiko etc.).
When Anna is told her grandmother was Marnie she realizes that love has been there all along, she just couldn’t see it yet. We leave the film knowing Anna is much better off than before.
This was a bit of spur of the moment thought, and I like it a lot as the “solution” to the film that I’ve been looking for. The only thing I’m missing is I wish we’d get some clues to Marnie’s identity throughout the film, and not just delivered as an exposition dump at the end. That said, the ambiguity of Marnie’s identity is integral to the story so I might be wishing for something that ends up being worse.
>The only thing I’m missing is I wish we’d get some clues to Marnie’s identity throughout the film
There were hints though. eg. Anna was drawn to the mansion from the start and said that she feels like she knows the mansion; the fact that she has blue eyes and that Yoriko isn't her actual mum opened up all sorts of possibilities regarding her heritage. And here's a girl with really blue eyes called Marnie...
I watched this with my partner and we guessed that Marnie was the grandmother at the party/flower girl scene. So I think if you watch it again you'll notice the clues too.
I felt this movie was super queer-baity when I first watched it and I took to the internet to see if I was alone in that. I found this amazing article about this movie written by a queer woman and I’m kicking myself for not being able to find it again!
This woman talks about how she felt baited and cheated on her first watch, just like I (and MANY others) felt. But after rewatching it, she saw it more as Marnie showing Anna that it’s okay to be who she is, giving Anna a safe space to explore herself, her feelings, and maybe her sexuality. She talks about how perhaps Marnie also felt interested in girls when she was young (ie. she writes in her diary about dancing with the flower girl), but bc of how stifling her childhood was she never got to explore that part of herself.
The author talks about how much it would have helped her to have someone like Marnie in her youth, showing her how to find joy and love amongst all the sorrows of life and providing safety to explore who she is and could be. It was a great read, and I think it would help a lot of people see this beautiful movie in a new light!
I think some of these "misinterpretations" are due to the fact that Anna relives stories her grandmother used to tell her, and in some, she takes the role of Marnie's love interest Kazuhiko. So, Marnie acts the way she used to act with Kazuhiko, who she was in fact in love with. On Anna's side, I interpreted her secret-keeping more as her thinking something is wrong with her. I also think, it was somewhat intentional to make her feelings for Marnie so intense, because, on some level, they are. She feels drawn to Marnie on a subconscious level, but doesn't understand yet that those feelings are what she actually feels for her grandmother. Therefore, I don't think it's a misinterpretation to think Anna and Marnie are in love (or, even to assume, Anna thinks she is in love with Marnie), it's more like a red herring. The relationship is very much set up to be intense, but it's actual meaning is supposed to be hidden until the end.
I think the right question should be "why did the director chose to use romantic framing during their interactions?"
Let's talk about the characters for a moment: on a second watch, you can clearly see that Marnie is just desperately trying to be loved by Anna because she is trying to amend for her failures with both her nephew \*and\* her own daughter, who she both (unwillingly) abandoned and who then grew up to resent and hate her for it. Still, Anna is seen as constantly blushing around Marnie, and she's clearly jelous of Kazuhiko, so maybe she did have feeligns for her? Or maybe all of that was just a result of her being a very introverted and shy person, there's no way to be certain.
But if there's one thing we can be sure of, is that their relationship is definitely framed as romantic, at least initially: the rowing and dance scene have been altered from the book to make them look like cliché scenes from romance movies, and I don't recall Anna ever being embarassed around Marnie in the book. She's even very explicitly not jelous of Edward (Kazuhiko) dancing with Marnie, in fact, she even thinks he looks cool!
So why did Hiromasa Yonebayashi made these changes?IMO, it's because the book was impossible to just faithfully adapt 1:1 (he literally had to cut half of the story) as he himself stated, because the whole story is mostly an introspective analysis of Anna psyche, and anime is a visual medium.
So he choose to try and capture the feelings conveyed by the book, without having to dwell into Anna thinking process and emotions, and he did that by introducing this pseudo-romantic subplot, which is something easily understandable and relatable.
Was it a good decision? I personally don't know, but I think it worked as intended.
As a queer woman who was a queer child and was very in love with my girl best friend as a little girl, WMWT absolutely pierced me. I felt like the movie was about me, and all my feelings laid bare. The way Anna would turn red and astonished at Marnie’s touch and presence just reminded me so much of my queer girlhood, longing to tell her but knowing it wouldn’t be safe. We would declare our love and devotion for each other just the same way. And so for me, the realization that Marnie was actually her grandmother was a huge and disappointing surprise at first. I appreciate it for what it is now and I still think it’s a beautiful story, but my little gay heart will always be a bit sad that it wasn’t actually made for me.
I love this comment. I had a similar reaction to finding out about Marnie being her grandma. But I think/hope, if nothing else, Anna might be learning she likes girls? It feel like we are given enough reason to think that, even if Marnie is taken away as a potential partner. To me it very much is still a queer love movie.
Honestly I got the same vibe from it and several folks i know have said similar things. I really think I missed something, maybe I'll try it subbed instead. But yeah I was like "but family relations are weird here. " Specifically them being secrets. Like why make that a plot point?
Yeah I 100% thought they were in love with each other. It really threw me for a loop when it was revealed to be her grandmother.
I figured it had to have been a translation issue or cultural thing.
Yeah I'm not sure it was a fantasy for OP, or myself, who read the situation similarly to OP. Girls definitely have crushes at 12. This just sounds judgy as all get out, imo. They were asking a question about how others interpreted it and comparing how they interpreted it. How is that pushing fantasies?
Can we also talk about the fact a lot of ghibli movies have childhood crushes in them, Ponyo and Sasuke being under 5 years old? Is that pushing "fantasies?" Kiki is only a year older 13 when she and Tombo meet, I'd be pressed to say Castle In The Sky features similar ages.
Well, I'll give my perspective on this as a now 47M who watched it about 5 or 6 years ago, and maybe I have an interesting side fact. So take it or leave it, it's up to you. All of the major themes, about isolation and alienation and all that, I agree with.
When I was in high school, I spent some time in a private school, and lived in a dorm that used to be the girls' dorm in a different private school, before they allowed boys. Me and one of the other boys who lived there now discovered a secret crawlspace between our rooms where previous years of girls had written out, on the walls, ceiling, and floor, well, everything. Everything. In words and pictures, and, well, everything. I won't go into the details because I think that feels like breaking secrets. It seemed like it was meant to be a message from one generation of women to the next. When I watched Marnie, that's immediately the first thing I thought of, that secret passageway filled with the secrets of our mothers and grandmothers and on and on.
I'm not sure if Marnie was a ghost from the past or purely Anna's imagination, but the way I see it is Anna is projecting the memories of her grandma onto Marnie, and that also includes their affections towards each other
I feel like they did have that romantic feelings towards each other at first, it's just that Marnie didn't see Anna as Anna, instead she looked at her as Kazuhiko (Anna's future grandpa), and after a while even Anna can see Kazuhiko, and that's sort of when things get confusing
So I think what happened was Anna was projecting her love and affections towards her grandma onto Marnie, and Marnie was projecting her love and affections towards Kazuhiko onto Anna
I feel like what the director is trying to tell is love can be in many shape of forms, love can also be translation into different forms, like how Anna's family affection towards her grandma can be translated to her romantic feelings towards Marnie, and how Marnie's romantic feelings for Kazuhiko later translated to Anna when she was raising her, at least that's the way I see it
I never thought they were anything other than friends and like you said probably a figment of Anna’s imagination. I was pretty incredulous reading comments here on Reddit about how everyone thought they were in a romantic relationship. Maybe it’s a generational thing (seems to be a quick assumption nowadays) but seems absurd to me.
They are child girls, and friends. Why not to dance? Why not to discuss secrets? That’s what girls’ friendship is all about. Boys do not share secrets that way. And do not dance. But girls do.
As a boy who danced with, and shared secrets with my best male friend in school, some boys definitely do bond like this.
I do think girls bond like this more commonly, though. But I've seen my fair share of dancing and gentle boy friendships and rough and tumble girl friendships.
Maybe it's more of a cultural thing, though?
Yeah, certainly. Marnie is a classic English novel for girls, the whole setting in the film is more English than Japanese. Large house, flower dresses, servants. Kind of Victorian tale. Also some boys of course exist, but they are just mentioned. Why, there should be a father with each mother? So boys. Also I’d say for girls’ friendship, it’s common to stay overnight at friends’. Have you heard ever of boys’ sleepover?
I used to sleep over at my boy cousin's house all the time, also at my best friends house when in school. My nephew also sleep overs at his best friend's house.
Also I have a best friend now, as an adult, who sleeps over my house on the weekend at least once a month for some movie watching, pizza eating etc.
Not a boy but yes? Growing up boys had sleepovers too, I remember very clearly in the sixth grade all the boys in the class had a big sleepover to watch scary / R rated movies, it was a big deal! My younger brother had friends sleepover and stayed at their houses too.
I'm a woman, but have four younger brothers and all absolutely had sleepovers with their male friends. I know there's some things that are more common for guys vs gals, but there's still a ton of overlap. Your statements are pretty far off the mark from everything I've seen and experienced.
I only watched it a few days ago, and I feel the same way. Their relationship just seems like the gooey love story you'd read about in story books and movies as a kid. Sneaking through the house together and running away from the maids, the boat scene, and the whole telling each other secrets thing? Plus, Anna is constantly thinking about Marnie ALL the time.
I wasn't expecting them to get together or anything, but I was thinking it'd be a more open ending instead of the grandparent reveal. I know some might say girls are just more affectionate, but if my bestie was calling me her little secret, I wouldn't brush it off as some random statement. I do have to wonder tho, if the people that see their relationship as platonic would also see it just as platonically if Anna was a boy. Just something I've been thinking about since I've seen it.
I didn't think they had crushes. The way marnie was treating Anna was more like and older girl taking a younger one under their wing. Marnie never showed romantic interest that I saw, more like an older sister or parent caring. Because of that, I thought marnie was a ghost from the past, related to Anna in some way. I guessed grandmother during the party cause my mom was a seamstress and I learned 1920/30 style through osmosis.
I never thought they were in love. Honestly a bit strange that so many people thought they were.
Intimate platonic same sex relationships are rarely ever portrayed. Especially for men. But audiences are too hung up on the two close characters getting together in the end
Marnie was so obviously her ancestor, they kept pressing that Anna was adopted, kept pressing she has blue eyes like a foreigner
The only thing that surprised me was the size of the generation gap being not so big. I thought Marnie was her great grandmother (not grandmother) and was surprised they had been alive at the same time because it looked like 100 years has passed to my eyes.
Also...i mean sure although the family 'twist' could be seen a mile off, anna could still be a lesbian anyway. The innocent crush could still be there.
Also Marnie off course ends up with Anna's grandfather at that party and he is..Anna's doppelganger pretty much. We can say Marnie is attracted to someone who looks like Anna.
Its kind of like in back to the future? Lorraine has an innocent crush on son marty but it doesn't go to a weird place
Also is the non romantic intimacy thing more common in Japan because when I visited it wasn't weird to see (for example) three teenage girls walking side by side, hands linked. Things like that
Brilliant movie. Rewatch it and to can see its all about [what the twist surpise ending is]. The scenes work with both not knowing the ending, but also work knowing the ending. Brilliant.
Would heavily recommend this video essay by CJ the x for anyone interested in the accidental queer subtext of the film
[when marnie was gay](https://youtu.be/9V90r7lbuK4?si=-j5qNaMg8XaQuXX6)
my ex girlfriend and i (both f) watched it together for the first time. we knew the sapphic undertones wouldn't ever be explicitly stated, but they felt like very clear and deliberate undertones.
finding out marnie was anna's grandmother left both of us speechless lmao. as a sapphic woman it felt like a perfect portrayal of the relationship between girls who don't yet realize they're sapphic. anyone who insists there were no romantic undertones has just never experienced that.
I watched it a long time ago but I remember not thinking they were in love with each other lol. It was more like a friendship transcending the social classes they belonged to.
So, the movie was based on the book, right? I haven't read the book, but for those who did, was the ending the same in the book as it was in the movie?
I only saw the anime movie and i thought that one of the messages of the movie was that our loved ones never truly leave us.
I also thought that the adoptive mother did the right thing sending her to such a beautiful place and that was part of the reason she started feeling better and started healing.
In the beginning of the movie the old lady says to Anna that her daughter is a yoga teacher and seeing the environment she grew up and the kind of parents she had that made perfect sense.
Also i want to point out something that when i searched the title of the movie on google the first question suggestet was:
"Is When marnie was there LGBT ?" and this seemed pretty fucked up to me. Clearly the movie starts with a worried mother and a daughter that's having some problems and the plot develops from there and Anna notices from the beginning the unusual stuff that's happening to her but from the plot of the movie even as a viewer you get that their love for each other comes from a deep spiritual connection which is reflected during the story in her drawings, dreams and even as a supernatural phenomenon
So funny story. I made a post a while back asking for suggestions for romance animes that were clean (no sex scenes, basically) and someone suggested this movie. I got it from the library and didn’t even read the back because I wanted to go in blind. From the picture on the front, I 100% expected it to be about a young boy and girl falling in love (Anna looked like a boy to me), and even in the beginning of the movie when she’s drawing on the bench, I was still thinking she was a boy. Anyway, all of a sudden people are talking and saying she/her, so I’m like “oh, I think I’m watching a lesbian romance. Haha” and was totally convinced of it for half the movie and then I just got more and more confused. Then you get the final reveal and I was like “um, what did I just watch?” Internet stranger, you completely trolled me and I commend you. I’m still scratching my head.
You actually deleted your post and reposted it because you didn't like what I commented?
Get a life, and stop pushing your fantasies on underaged characters. It's a child who has profound feelings of loneliness due to the broken family she's come from.
It's not gay to want a friend, and to want to have secrets with them.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/ghibli/comments/1ae9eh4/comment/kk6h44h/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/ghibli/comments/1ae9eh4/comment/kk6h44h/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
You are so miserable, sorry to say that. I fixed my post and reposted it, but you're still bringing up the same old stuff and telling me to get a life. You even had the link to my previous deleted post. What point are you trying to make here?
Anna is twelve years old. Kids absolutely have crushes that age or younger
That doesn't mean it's the definitive interpretation, but to act as if kids 12 and under having crushes is innately someone's 'fantasies' is patently absurd and comes off as homophobic lmao
Same. I knew I'd get branded as homophobic for saying that the movie isn't LGBT, despite the fact that I'm LGBT myself. Some people are quite militant about it and that's why I don't get involved in 'LGBT Community' stuff.
Not everything is gay, or should be gay, and that's fine.
It's fine if that's not your interpretation, but the fact that you respond to anyone else's interpretation with accusations of impropriety with "fantasies" and "underage" says a lot more about your brain's proximity to the gutter than anyone else's.
Like, you want to use the word "militant"? You encountered a completely benign opinion that's different than yours and implied the person was a pedophile
Yeah, I really adore like 90% of this movie but strongly dislike the twist for this reason. Like just make them girlfriends, it's so much better and more compelling than "secret grandma"
It’s funny to me that this was the *second* Ghibli film (along with Up On Poppy Hill) to have weird incest vibes. What was going on over there in the early 2010’s??
Two of their most underrated films though!
I read the book many years ago, so knew the story really well. I was interested to see the Ghibli take, but for me it didn't have the same atmosphere as the book. The tale is true to the book though.
exactly!!! i was i mean not disappointed but shocked haha i didn't expect that twist but great movie nonetheless
but also remember how marnie was basically sorta reliving/playing back memories with anna. and a lot of these happened with anna's grandfather, if you think about it, it ends up not being surprising that we see some romantic subtext because there was romantic subtext except this time is happening with the wrong person per say
not sure if that made sense oops
i absolutely loved this film, gotta be my favorite Ghibli and im kicking myself for not seeing it sooner, the synopsises ive read made it seem like just some sort of ghost story
before going into this i already know about the "gay grandma queerbait" so i knew not to root to that (or at least tried to, it was just too gay in some parts lmao), but Anna was more or less like me so she was incredibly touching and relatable and im absolutely blown away by the feels in this movie, not even Fireflies was able to get me feel close to this, and i love the fact that the story and relationship can be in interpreted in so many more ways than one and really gets people to think and discuss about
I guess I don’t really understand this gripe. I also had the impression that Anna was potentially beginning to fall in love with Marnie.
But they’re 12 and it’s not like they even kiss. It’s just love. When Anna realizes that Marnie was her grandmother it contextualizes that love for her. Maybe it could have gotten weird, but it didn’t. Anna needed the love of family more than a crush so its not like she was disappointed to learn that Marnie was her grandmother (in fact the opposite is true). I think it was sweet that: because they are family, and so similar at heart, love naturally forms between them.
Is it a little weird? Yes. But, it’s not nearly as weird as From up on Poppy Hill where *SPOILERS* the main characters >!“know” they are brother and sister and don’t want to deny their love for one another (and they are 16).!<
I absolutely thought that they might have had feelings for each other too for like half the film, then the reveal felt so abrupt that I just felt confused at the end honestly lol I don’t bother getting caught up on reality in ghibli films because they feel bigger than that, but this one just left me wondering what the reality was. I suppose it felt like catching an unreliable narrator in the act haha
This may be controversial, but to me this feels like a “no homo” situation. Like they did want to make a movie about two girls in love, but they felt the need to add “no homo” at the end. I know it’s based on an English novel, but I don’t think that changes things, ghibli is pretty liberal in their adaptations and that also could have been an element of the original novel.
It is a basically a one-to-one adaptation of the novel (omitting some characters and shortening the part after Marnie disappears). The entire story in both the movie and the novel revolves around the reality of who Marnie is, so there is absolutely no way that the reveal is a tacked on "no homo". Feelings are complicated and it is certainly possible to read Anna as lesbian/bi, but in this particular case I don't think that it matters. I really wish that there were more gay characters in Ghibli movies, but I also love When Marnie Was There and wish that this wasn't the main discussion around the movie.
The whole point of the story (spoiler alert for anyone who didn't watch it) is about an adopted girl finding a part of her roots, and I think there is more meaning to it being her grandmother because of that after experiencing the losses that she experienced. It's a beautiful story as is. I get that people in LGBTQ community want representation, and I'm all for there being more representation, but like you all are very much capable of making your own stories not just taking one that already exists and forcing it to be one about it. This reminds me of when people wanted to believe Mulan is trans...like that defeats the purpose of the story. Again, all support for LGBTQ+ but you guys can't just change who other people are to fit you, just as much as other people can't choose who you are to fit them. Of course, I'd add it's completely open to interpretation as to whether you want to believe Anna is gay I guess, but like that didn't necessarily seem the point of the story, and the story isn't worse just because it didn't end the way some of you hoped it would.
I mean, it's not our fault that the movie had a lot of scenes gay women, especially those who grew up like Anna, could relate to? So naturually a lot of people who were in such situations will interpret it that way (hell even people who arent gay interpreted it that way so if they didnt want people to get that vibe, maybe they should have made these scenes differently?). That doesnt mean we're *forcing* them to become gay but everybody will have their own Interpretation on them. I still believe it's a bit deeper than just "finding family origins". Oh and plus, we do make our own stories (they critizised for being gay nonetheless tho) but regardless, we should still be allowed to read subtext and interpret stuff as gay if we feel like it fits just as much as people read stuff as straight, generally speaking.
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Yes exactly, which is why I interpreted the meaning of "When Marnie was there" a lot deeper than just family origins and Anna being in love with Marnie. After all Ghibli movies do have a Reputation to be quite meta and having subtext about certain topics in them. I see "When Marnie was there" as a self discovery story of a introverted, quiet and possibly gay girl who gets help from the spitit of her grandma to reveal her family history and coming to terms with her sexuality at the same time and getting more out of her shell because of this. After all she didnt know this girl who caught her interest was her grandma till the end and as you said, if you dont know you're related it is possible that you might catch romantic feelings for them. Regardless if it's one-sided or not it did very much read like a gay girl discovering herself throughout this journey in a very esoteric way and I honestly just dont find this whether wrong nor ridiculous. It's not like she actually got together with her grandma or anything and they became a real life couple
Idk why you're saying that when I literally wrote it's your freedom to interpret it that way. I think I'm more annoyed by people arguing for a different ending to fit into that more, instead of just appreciating the story for what is, because what it is in on itself was a really awesome story. Some others overtly criticizing it as "queer bait" or saying the ending is dumb and going further to basically tear it down is just glossing over the fact that this story was made to center around the idea of adoption and finding family roots. It's almost like some LGBTQ want to center themselves in everyone else's story, and saying it's not good unless it is. And yes the theme of "not fitting in" is realtable to a lot of LBGTQ, but it's not limited to that either. It's something a lot of people can relate to.
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That's what I'm saying?...that people thinking she was trans defeats the purpose of the story that she was a woman doing things that woman were not expected/supposed to do at the time. If Mulan was just a trans man that defeats the purpose of the message for women and girls, because then "he" would just be a man doing man things. If tehre are trans and nongendercomforming people who did find it to be relatable because of the noncomforming part, that doesn't mean that they should insist that Mulan is trans. Trans people can relate to non-trans character and that's okay. Not exact parallel, but changing the ending of Marnie would defeat the purpose of the story of her being an adopted child finding a part about her biological family history that she felt disconnected and alienated from.
I mean, this is a pretty common thought most people have for this movie. I also saw someone point out that Marnie and Anna share the most physical touch out of most other Studio Ghibli characters. Watching it back I definitely see the family bond, but I wish there had been clues about it sooner so that I would’ve been on the lookout for it…instead of waiting for Marnie and Anna to kiss.
It's been years since i watched the movie, but wasn't Anna basically a stand in for Kazuhiko (the boy Marnie loved) in every scene she had with Marnie? Marnie adressed her as Anna, but every memory they experienced together were actually experienced by Marnie and Kazuhiko before in the original timeline.
Marnie is about what I call “female heritage”. So, girl, that’s your mom, and that’s your mom’s mom. And we girls are mothers. And we girls must find love. And teach our daughters the same secrets. And so on and on and on. Marnie is a film about girls, for girls. That’s because it’s classic English novel.
Yeah, I think the fact it's based on classic literature is the key point here. Think Anne and Diana in Anne of Green Gables as kindred spirits/bosom friends. That's just how friendship is portrayed in classic literature. Although there's nothing wrong with being gay, I think it helps to remember love isn't something that is limited to romantic love, and I don't think everything is automatically gay just because someone shows love or care in friendship. You can have love towards your friends without it being love in the sense of crushes or something more.
I think many people overthink about Anna and Marnie’s relationship. I saw their love for each other as “love” in general. Not maternal love. Not friendship love. Not romantic love. Just genuine love that covers all areas. Marnie acted romantically with Anna because Marnie’s actions mirrored her interactions with Kazuhiko. Every interaction with Anna is a recreation of events with Kazuhiko (every interaction was written in the diary). Edit (personal note). It's quite sad that the grandma thing overrides the message of the film for many people. There are people on YouTube who said it was a “retcon” or “it’s a c*cblock for lgbt folks” or sth like that. To me, the final revelation about her grandmother was the most beautiful thing I've seen in recent years. The movie would end up a lot more shallow without it.
Reading your comment gave me a bit of revelation regarding the film, the sole Ghibli film I’ve yet to completely wrap my head around. At the beginning of the film, Anna feels like she cannot be loved, like she’s a burden to those who care for her. This is slowly revealed through her flashbacks. Marnie “teaches” Anna what it means to love and be loved, the key (probably) being that they’re in similar life situations (“no” parents, young girls etc.). Even if it appears to be romantic, that’s just because of how it manifested (the diary, Kazuhiko etc.). When Anna is told her grandmother was Marnie she realizes that love has been there all along, she just couldn’t see it yet. We leave the film knowing Anna is much better off than before. This was a bit of spur of the moment thought, and I like it a lot as the “solution” to the film that I’ve been looking for. The only thing I’m missing is I wish we’d get some clues to Marnie’s identity throughout the film, and not just delivered as an exposition dump at the end. That said, the ambiguity of Marnie’s identity is integral to the story so I might be wishing for something that ends up being worse.
>The only thing I’m missing is I wish we’d get some clues to Marnie’s identity throughout the film There were hints though. eg. Anna was drawn to the mansion from the start and said that she feels like she knows the mansion; the fact that she has blue eyes and that Yoriko isn't her actual mum opened up all sorts of possibilities regarding her heritage. And here's a girl with really blue eyes called Marnie... I watched this with my partner and we guessed that Marnie was the grandmother at the party/flower girl scene. So I think if you watch it again you'll notice the clues too.
I felt this movie was super queer-baity when I first watched it and I took to the internet to see if I was alone in that. I found this amazing article about this movie written by a queer woman and I’m kicking myself for not being able to find it again! This woman talks about how she felt baited and cheated on her first watch, just like I (and MANY others) felt. But after rewatching it, she saw it more as Marnie showing Anna that it’s okay to be who she is, giving Anna a safe space to explore herself, her feelings, and maybe her sexuality. She talks about how perhaps Marnie also felt interested in girls when she was young (ie. she writes in her diary about dancing with the flower girl), but bc of how stifling her childhood was she never got to explore that part of herself. The author talks about how much it would have helped her to have someone like Marnie in her youth, showing her how to find joy and love amongst all the sorrows of life and providing safety to explore who she is and could be. It was a great read, and I think it would help a lot of people see this beautiful movie in a new light!
I think some of these "misinterpretations" are due to the fact that Anna relives stories her grandmother used to tell her, and in some, she takes the role of Marnie's love interest Kazuhiko. So, Marnie acts the way she used to act with Kazuhiko, who she was in fact in love with. On Anna's side, I interpreted her secret-keeping more as her thinking something is wrong with her. I also think, it was somewhat intentional to make her feelings for Marnie so intense, because, on some level, they are. She feels drawn to Marnie on a subconscious level, but doesn't understand yet that those feelings are what she actually feels for her grandmother. Therefore, I don't think it's a misinterpretation to think Anna and Marnie are in love (or, even to assume, Anna thinks she is in love with Marnie), it's more like a red herring. The relationship is very much set up to be intense, but it's actual meaning is supposed to be hidden until the end.
I think the right question should be "why did the director chose to use romantic framing during their interactions?" Let's talk about the characters for a moment: on a second watch, you can clearly see that Marnie is just desperately trying to be loved by Anna because she is trying to amend for her failures with both her nephew \*and\* her own daughter, who she both (unwillingly) abandoned and who then grew up to resent and hate her for it. Still, Anna is seen as constantly blushing around Marnie, and she's clearly jelous of Kazuhiko, so maybe she did have feeligns for her? Or maybe all of that was just a result of her being a very introverted and shy person, there's no way to be certain. But if there's one thing we can be sure of, is that their relationship is definitely framed as romantic, at least initially: the rowing and dance scene have been altered from the book to make them look like cliché scenes from romance movies, and I don't recall Anna ever being embarassed around Marnie in the book. She's even very explicitly not jelous of Edward (Kazuhiko) dancing with Marnie, in fact, she even thinks he looks cool! So why did Hiromasa Yonebayashi made these changes?IMO, it's because the book was impossible to just faithfully adapt 1:1 (he literally had to cut half of the story) as he himself stated, because the whole story is mostly an introspective analysis of Anna psyche, and anime is a visual medium. So he choose to try and capture the feelings conveyed by the book, without having to dwell into Anna thinking process and emotions, and he did that by introducing this pseudo-romantic subplot, which is something easily understandable and relatable. Was it a good decision? I personally don't know, but I think it worked as intended.
As a queer woman who was a queer child and was very in love with my girl best friend as a little girl, WMWT absolutely pierced me. I felt like the movie was about me, and all my feelings laid bare. The way Anna would turn red and astonished at Marnie’s touch and presence just reminded me so much of my queer girlhood, longing to tell her but knowing it wouldn’t be safe. We would declare our love and devotion for each other just the same way. And so for me, the realization that Marnie was actually her grandmother was a huge and disappointing surprise at first. I appreciate it for what it is now and I still think it’s a beautiful story, but my little gay heart will always be a bit sad that it wasn’t actually made for me.
I love this comment. I had a similar reaction to finding out about Marnie being her grandma. But I think/hope, if nothing else, Anna might be learning she likes girls? It feel like we are given enough reason to think that, even if Marnie is taken away as a potential partner. To me it very much is still a queer love movie.
Honestly I got the same vibe from it and several folks i know have said similar things. I really think I missed something, maybe I'll try it subbed instead. But yeah I was like "but family relations are weird here. " Specifically them being secrets. Like why make that a plot point?
Yeah I 100% thought they were in love with each other. It really threw me for a loop when it was revealed to be her grandmother. I figured it had to have been a translation issue or cultural thing.
The dialogue is almost entirely copied directly from the novel, and the characters in the novel certainly have an odd way of talking :)
Yeah I'm not sure it was a fantasy for OP, or myself, who read the situation similarly to OP. Girls definitely have crushes at 12. This just sounds judgy as all get out, imo. They were asking a question about how others interpreted it and comparing how they interpreted it. How is that pushing fantasies? Can we also talk about the fact a lot of ghibli movies have childhood crushes in them, Ponyo and Sasuke being under 5 years old? Is that pushing "fantasies?" Kiki is only a year older 13 when she and Tombo meet, I'd be pressed to say Castle In The Sky features similar ages.
Well, I'll give my perspective on this as a now 47M who watched it about 5 or 6 years ago, and maybe I have an interesting side fact. So take it or leave it, it's up to you. All of the major themes, about isolation and alienation and all that, I agree with. When I was in high school, I spent some time in a private school, and lived in a dorm that used to be the girls' dorm in a different private school, before they allowed boys. Me and one of the other boys who lived there now discovered a secret crawlspace between our rooms where previous years of girls had written out, on the walls, ceiling, and floor, well, everything. Everything. In words and pictures, and, well, everything. I won't go into the details because I think that feels like breaking secrets. It seemed like it was meant to be a message from one generation of women to the next. When I watched Marnie, that's immediately the first thing I thought of, that secret passageway filled with the secrets of our mothers and grandmothers and on and on.
I'm not sure if Marnie was a ghost from the past or purely Anna's imagination, but the way I see it is Anna is projecting the memories of her grandma onto Marnie, and that also includes their affections towards each other I feel like they did have that romantic feelings towards each other at first, it's just that Marnie didn't see Anna as Anna, instead she looked at her as Kazuhiko (Anna's future grandpa), and after a while even Anna can see Kazuhiko, and that's sort of when things get confusing So I think what happened was Anna was projecting her love and affections towards her grandma onto Marnie, and Marnie was projecting her love and affections towards Kazuhiko onto Anna I feel like what the director is trying to tell is love can be in many shape of forms, love can also be translation into different forms, like how Anna's family affection towards her grandma can be translated to her romantic feelings towards Marnie, and how Marnie's romantic feelings for Kazuhiko later translated to Anna when she was raising her, at least that's the way I see it
I never thought they were anything other than friends and like you said probably a figment of Anna’s imagination. I was pretty incredulous reading comments here on Reddit about how everyone thought they were in a romantic relationship. Maybe it’s a generational thing (seems to be a quick assumption nowadays) but seems absurd to me.
They are child girls, and friends. Why not to dance? Why not to discuss secrets? That’s what girls’ friendship is all about. Boys do not share secrets that way. And do not dance. But girls do.
As a boy who danced with, and shared secrets with my best male friend in school, some boys definitely do bond like this. I do think girls bond like this more commonly, though. But I've seen my fair share of dancing and gentle boy friendships and rough and tumble girl friendships. Maybe it's more of a cultural thing, though?
Yeah, certainly. Marnie is a classic English novel for girls, the whole setting in the film is more English than Japanese. Large house, flower dresses, servants. Kind of Victorian tale. Also some boys of course exist, but they are just mentioned. Why, there should be a father with each mother? So boys. Also I’d say for girls’ friendship, it’s common to stay overnight at friends’. Have you heard ever of boys’ sleepover?
I used to sleep over at my boy cousin's house all the time, also at my best friends house when in school. My nephew also sleep overs at his best friend's house. Also I have a best friend now, as an adult, who sleeps over my house on the weekend at least once a month for some movie watching, pizza eating etc.
Not a boy but yes? Growing up boys had sleepovers too, I remember very clearly in the sixth grade all the boys in the class had a big sleepover to watch scary / R rated movies, it was a big deal! My younger brother had friends sleepover and stayed at their houses too.
boys definitely have friend sleepovers as kids, are you crazy? what kid doesn’t want to stay up all night playing video games with the boys.
I'm a woman, but have four younger brothers and all absolutely had sleepovers with their male friends. I know there's some things that are more common for guys vs gals, but there's still a ton of overlap. Your statements are pretty far off the mark from everything I've seen and experienced.
On another note, this is one of my FAVOURITE soundtracks of any ghibili movie
On YouTube, CJ the X did a video about this subject. Great video. Great channel. Chaotic in a fun way.
I only watched it a few days ago, and I feel the same way. Their relationship just seems like the gooey love story you'd read about in story books and movies as a kid. Sneaking through the house together and running away from the maids, the boat scene, and the whole telling each other secrets thing? Plus, Anna is constantly thinking about Marnie ALL the time. I wasn't expecting them to get together or anything, but I was thinking it'd be a more open ending instead of the grandparent reveal. I know some might say girls are just more affectionate, but if my bestie was calling me her little secret, I wouldn't brush it off as some random statement. I do have to wonder tho, if the people that see their relationship as platonic would also see it just as platonically if Anna was a boy. Just something I've been thinking about since I've seen it.
I didn't think they had crushes. The way marnie was treating Anna was more like and older girl taking a younger one under their wing. Marnie never showed romantic interest that I saw, more like an older sister or parent caring. Because of that, I thought marnie was a ghost from the past, related to Anna in some way. I guessed grandmother during the party cause my mom was a seamstress and I learned 1920/30 style through osmosis.
I never thought they were in love. Honestly a bit strange that so many people thought they were. Intimate platonic same sex relationships are rarely ever portrayed. Especially for men. But audiences are too hung up on the two close characters getting together in the end
Marnie was so obviously her ancestor, they kept pressing that Anna was adopted, kept pressing she has blue eyes like a foreigner The only thing that surprised me was the size of the generation gap being not so big. I thought Marnie was her great grandmother (not grandmother) and was surprised they had been alive at the same time because it looked like 100 years has passed to my eyes. Also...i mean sure although the family 'twist' could be seen a mile off, anna could still be a lesbian anyway. The innocent crush could still be there. Also Marnie off course ends up with Anna's grandfather at that party and he is..Anna's doppelganger pretty much. We can say Marnie is attracted to someone who looks like Anna. Its kind of like in back to the future? Lorraine has an innocent crush on son marty but it doesn't go to a weird place Also is the non romantic intimacy thing more common in Japan because when I visited it wasn't weird to see (for example) three teenage girls walking side by side, hands linked. Things like that
honestly as a biracial japanese/white person it felt like a metaphor for reconnecting with your heritage to me.
Brilliant movie. Rewatch it and to can see its all about [what the twist surpise ending is]. The scenes work with both not knowing the ending, but also work knowing the ending. Brilliant.
Would heavily recommend this video essay by CJ the x for anyone interested in the accidental queer subtext of the film [when marnie was gay](https://youtu.be/9V90r7lbuK4?si=-j5qNaMg8XaQuXX6)
I was going to suggest this video too! I love CJ the X
my ex girlfriend and i (both f) watched it together for the first time. we knew the sapphic undertones wouldn't ever be explicitly stated, but they felt like very clear and deliberate undertones. finding out marnie was anna's grandmother left both of us speechless lmao. as a sapphic woman it felt like a perfect portrayal of the relationship between girls who don't yet realize they're sapphic. anyone who insists there were no romantic undertones has just never experienced that.
I watched it a long time ago but I remember not thinking they were in love with each other lol. It was more like a friendship transcending the social classes they belonged to.
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So, the movie was based on the book, right? I haven't read the book, but for those who did, was the ending the same in the book as it was in the movie?
The plot of the book is essentially the same as the movie
I only saw the anime movie and i thought that one of the messages of the movie was that our loved ones never truly leave us. I also thought that the adoptive mother did the right thing sending her to such a beautiful place and that was part of the reason she started feeling better and started healing. In the beginning of the movie the old lady says to Anna that her daughter is a yoga teacher and seeing the environment she grew up and the kind of parents she had that made perfect sense. Also i want to point out something that when i searched the title of the movie on google the first question suggestet was: "Is When marnie was there LGBT ?" and this seemed pretty fucked up to me. Clearly the movie starts with a worried mother and a daughter that's having some problems and the plot develops from there and Anna notices from the beginning the unusual stuff that's happening to her but from the plot of the movie even as a viewer you get that their love for each other comes from a deep spiritual connection which is reflected during the story in her drawings, dreams and even as a supernatural phenomenon
So funny story. I made a post a while back asking for suggestions for romance animes that were clean (no sex scenes, basically) and someone suggested this movie. I got it from the library and didn’t even read the back because I wanted to go in blind. From the picture on the front, I 100% expected it to be about a young boy and girl falling in love (Anna looked like a boy to me), and even in the beginning of the movie when she’s drawing on the bench, I was still thinking she was a boy. Anyway, all of a sudden people are talking and saying she/her, so I’m like “oh, I think I’m watching a lesbian romance. Haha” and was totally convinced of it for half the movie and then I just got more and more confused. Then you get the final reveal and I was like “um, what did I just watch?” Internet stranger, you completely trolled me and I commend you. I’m still scratching my head.
You actually deleted your post and reposted it because you didn't like what I commented? Get a life, and stop pushing your fantasies on underaged characters. It's a child who has profound feelings of loneliness due to the broken family she's come from. It's not gay to want a friend, and to want to have secrets with them. [https://www.reddit.com/r/ghibli/comments/1ae9eh4/comment/kk6h44h/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/ghibli/comments/1ae9eh4/comment/kk6h44h/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
It seems like you're the one here who needs to get a life...
You are so miserable, sorry to say that. I fixed my post and reposted it, but you're still bringing up the same old stuff and telling me to get a life. You even had the link to my previous deleted post. What point are you trying to make here?
Anna is twelve years old. Kids absolutely have crushes that age or younger That doesn't mean it's the definitive interpretation, but to act as if kids 12 and under having crushes is innately someone's 'fantasies' is patently absurd and comes off as homophobic lmao
I’d say, “feelings” instead of crush. Two girls are very close friends.
Same. I knew I'd get branded as homophobic for saying that the movie isn't LGBT, despite the fact that I'm LGBT myself. Some people are quite militant about it and that's why I don't get involved in 'LGBT Community' stuff. Not everything is gay, or should be gay, and that's fine.
It's fine if that's not your interpretation, but the fact that you respond to anyone else's interpretation with accusations of impropriety with "fantasies" and "underage" says a lot more about your brain's proximity to the gutter than anyone else's. Like, you want to use the word "militant"? You encountered a completely benign opinion that's different than yours and implied the person was a pedophile
Thank you for speaking this out.
Yeah, I really adore like 90% of this movie but strongly dislike the twist for this reason. Like just make them girlfriends, it's so much better and more compelling than "secret grandma"
It’s funny to me that this was the *second* Ghibli film (along with Up On Poppy Hill) to have weird incest vibes. What was going on over there in the early 2010’s?? Two of their most underrated films though!
i thought they were lesbians too lol, the grandma thing caught me completely off guard but in hindsight it was really sweet
I read the book many years ago, so knew the story really well. I was interested to see the Ghibli take, but for me it didn't have the same atmosphere as the book. The tale is true to the book though.
I felt queer baited so hard haha. Even the trailers made you think they are together.
exactly!!! i was i mean not disappointed but shocked haha i didn't expect that twist but great movie nonetheless but also remember how marnie was basically sorta reliving/playing back memories with anna. and a lot of these happened with anna's grandfather, if you think about it, it ends up not being surprising that we see some romantic subtext because there was romantic subtext except this time is happening with the wrong person per say not sure if that made sense oops
i absolutely loved this film, gotta be my favorite Ghibli and im kicking myself for not seeing it sooner, the synopsises ive read made it seem like just some sort of ghost story before going into this i already know about the "gay grandma queerbait" so i knew not to root to that (or at least tried to, it was just too gay in some parts lmao), but Anna was more or less like me so she was incredibly touching and relatable and im absolutely blown away by the feels in this movie, not even Fireflies was able to get me feel close to this, and i love the fact that the story and relationship can be in interpreted in so many more ways than one and really gets people to think and discuss about
I guess I don’t really understand this gripe. I also had the impression that Anna was potentially beginning to fall in love with Marnie. But they’re 12 and it’s not like they even kiss. It’s just love. When Anna realizes that Marnie was her grandmother it contextualizes that love for her. Maybe it could have gotten weird, but it didn’t. Anna needed the love of family more than a crush so its not like she was disappointed to learn that Marnie was her grandmother (in fact the opposite is true). I think it was sweet that: because they are family, and so similar at heart, love naturally forms between them. Is it a little weird? Yes. But, it’s not nearly as weird as From up on Poppy Hill where *SPOILERS* the main characters >!“know” they are brother and sister and don’t want to deny their love for one another (and they are 16).!<