A Silent Voice: The Most Beautiful Film with The Most Unsatisfying Ending

A couple of weeks ago, I watched the movie A Silent Voice on Netflix. Even though the movie is over four years old at this point, having come out originally in 2016, it's getting a lot of buzz online and is listed on many people's lists as a top ten romance anime film.

The story is about a hearing-impaired girl named Shoko who transfers into a 6th grade classroom full of what could be best described as ruthless bullies. The students don't start off that merciless, but over time they slowly lose patience with her and her inability to communicate with them in a way that makes them comfortable. They get tired of using her notebook to write back and forth and they refuse to learn any sign language to accommodate her. The worst bully is named Shoya. He torments her almost constantly: ripping her hearing aides from her ears, mocking her speech, and generally being a nuisance. (Apparently in the manga which this movie is based on, his teasing is largely motivated by a crush, but we don't get that context in the movie). When Shoko's mother finally gets wind of how badly her daughter is being treated, and after she gets fed up over constantly needing to replace her hearing aides, the school principal finally intervenes. The whole class, including the teacher, uses Shoya as a scapegoat. When he tries to defend himself, to assert that he wasn't the only one bullying her, everyone else denies it. He becomes a social outcast from that point forward. Shoko transfers away again and no one sees her for years.

The main portion of the movie follows Shoya's attempts as a high school student to make amends for how he treated Shoko and to befriend her. He has already put in the work of learning sign language. We furthermore see from how he treats a peer who was being bullied, and from his other actions, that he really has changed. He was really unlikable from the beginning of the movie, but within a few short scenes, we see how sensitive, remorseful, and repentant he is. He is so grieved for his past behavior and for his current friendless life that he actually plans on killing himself, but because his journey is about his redemption, he reconsiders to try to tie up one loose end first: as I mentioned before, making Shoko happy.

Over the course of the movie, the two characters open up to each other and slowly Shoya begins to be able to connect with his classmates once again. He goes from being totally unable to look anyone in the eyes to being able to talk with some people freely. The issue that I have with this is, the people who he begins associating with are terrible. He has one friend who is genuinely nice, the kid who he saved from a bully, but the rest are classmates from sixth grade who really haven't changed at all. And (spoiler) at the end of the movie, they are still unchanged.

This wouldn't be such a problem to me if it weren't for the fact that Shoya reintroduces these people to Shoko and it seems like we're supposed to view them as a friend group. One could argue that reintroducing Shoko to her unrepentant former classmates is the catalyst for the conflict at the climax of the film. And after that conflict, they are still presented as central characters. They all suck. One girl in particular I wanted to get pushed down a flight of stairs.

This makes the ending really, really unsatisfying. I spent the whole movie waiting for these characters to either get comeuppance or seek forgiveness. Neither thing happens. It's really realistic, but it doesn't make for a very happy ending. In real life, the people who pick on you in middle school often end up in your classes in high school. They never apologize, but yet you're expected to work on group projects with them, to help them study, to go to parties with them. And you do it. And you don't complain. You may even joke together. They might make you smile once or twice. But in the back of your mind, you can never forget when they bullied you. I know I had people like that in my life.

So the question is, do I recommend this highly rated movie to you? Maybe, if you like a movie that will make you angry and unable to sleep for a few nights. The animation is beautiful and the soundtrack is memorable. But everything else about the movie almost feels incomplete.