Our take
A best friendship break-up can be the most devastating thing that can happen to you in high school, especially when it’s because you’re leaving for separate colleges. Liz and the Blue Bird depicts one dynamic through two girls preparing for an orchestral concert. By pairing the two girls with the faux fairy tale that they’re playing, director Naoko Yamada subtly reveals their conflicting feelings in naturalistic, fleeting moments and watercolor fantasy. This subtle expression is helped immensely by the impeccable wind band score by composer Kensuke Ushio. While it doesn’t quite compare to A Silent Voice, Yamada’s previous work, Liz and the Blue Bird nonetheless shares that delicate symphony of art and music that genuinely capture these adolescent feelings.
Streaming arrival
The story
In their last year of high school, two girls in the brass band club perform a song inspired by a fairy tale that parallels their friendship.
As they prepare for a concert with their wind band, best friends Mizore and Nozomi deal with being in their last year of high school.
The sound design! Of course, given the characters, it makes sense that it’s great, but the way the score pairs well with the background and the voices just lulls you into the film in such a moving way.
Naoko Yamada loves to make us cry, huh?
Who picked it
Isabella Endrinal is a curator at A Good Movie to Watch. She's now free from the corporate night shift. Previous articles have been published in outlets such as NANG Magazine. She's currently catching up on some classic films… if she isn't coping with the fact that the Haikyu anime will end soon.
