"I Want to Eat Your Pancreas" review

More emotional than the title would have you think.

Adapted from the 2015 novel of the same name, the almost comically titled “I Want to Eat Your Pancreas” relays the story of a nameless protagonist’s brief relationship with his 17 year old classmate Sakura Yamauchi.

Sakura suffers from an affliction that is slowly but surely shutting down her pancreas, giving her little time left to live and she intends to do it to the fullest, not wanting drag down her loved ones with knowledge of her affliction while seizing the opportunity to make do on her desires to go out with a smile on her face by taking advantage of the protagonist’s companionship, aware of her disease through an accidental glance of her diary and helped back from emotional reaction by his own levels of extreme introversion, allowing her a friend that can be both in her words, honest and normal.

As its premise would suggest, “I Want to Eat Your Pancreas” aims to tug at the heartstrings through a scenario that you’d have to be flat out heartless to not be the least bit sympathetic towards. To that end, it has a lot of unfortunate areas of its make up that don’t quite fire on all cylinders.

The first half is bloated with a lot of underdeveloped classroom social dynamics that were clearly intended to have a greater impact upon the second half than they ultimately do, which leaves their ultimate pay off in the back end of the movie to feel a little bit lacking, along with the established relationships feeling kind of like a lapse in writing from a screenwriter that’s not particularly in touch with the social dynamics of high schoolers.

Although the second half is generally tighter, it also manages to succumb to minor moments of schmaltz that offset the balancing act that it was finally getting into a decent groove executing, not the least of which becomes the revelation of the protagonist’s name which you’ll easily see coming from a mile away.

The end result becomes a film that ultimately feels just a tad bit more lopsided than you’d probably hope for considering the golden age of theatrically released anime trending towards the dramatic rather than the fantastical that we seem to be finding ourselves in stateside.

What ultimately ties and holds “I Want to Eat Your Pancreas” together however is the genuine sweetness of the relationship it follows.

The protagonist never comes off as the sort of insulting caricature of an introvert that’s so easy to portray in fiction but is clearly in desperate need of the growth his heart shattering journey is destined to give him and although Sakura herself begins the movie a bit too boisterous, it doesn’t take long for her to reveal that there’s more going on behind the smile she puts on for the world, as she learns to be aware of the fact that her actions in life are going to affect more people than herself.

Their brief time together explores different aspects of adventure, enrichment, and intimacy that aren’t always comfortable to grapple with in the best of circumstances but are unavoidable when discussing one’s impending and anticipated demise, ringing particularly powerfully in watching somebody so young have to grapple with these issues of mortality long before they should ever have to, while surrounded by colleagues concerned with the long bright futures ahead of them.

It’s a relationship that skirts lines, gets awkward, can dip into light spots of toxicity, but ultimately settles on being sweet, heartwarming, and beautiful.

As Sakura and the protagonist carry the movie forward, the inevitable gut punch of the finale lands with an event you know was coming to pass in the way you would absolutely least anticipate it and this is the moment when the film rises above whatever structural issues it may have had to end on the note of poignancy it fought to build up throughout the feature.

“I Want to Eat Your Pancreas” isn’t quite a new modern classic in the making but its sweet nature leading to a deceptively powerful conclusion give it more dramatic bite than the silliness of its name would have you believe and despite the relationship of its narrative playing fast and loose with an explicit romantic label, is the perfect treat for a coming Valentine’s Day week release.

7 Last Wills and Testaments out of 10