In spring, a girl leaves the island of Hokkaido to attend university in Tokyo. Once there, she is asked to reveal why she wanted to go there in the first place.
Director Shunji Iwai has some respectable films under his belt, among them are the critically acclaimed All About Lily Chou-Chou (2001) and Love Letter (1995), a mammoth of a love story. With April Story he made a slower paced and more relaxed romance drama involving a teenage girl on a kind of quest. A simple story but with a lot of heart, and if Iwai hadn't treated the film the same way as with his other huge films the plot would have fallen apart instantly. It's quite short, clocking in at barely over an hour, but I wish it went on longer because you really get into the story and at the end, when all the pieces are put together you just want to see how it all plays out. I wouldn't say that nothing gets resolved, it's just me who wished to stay a little while longer in Tokyo, waiting for a happy end. And if I don't want a film to end, I'd say that's a great achievement.
Genre: Drama
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