Avaliações do Metacritic

Seo excavates universal truths that transcend all generational and cultural divides. The many geographical, social and emotional pains these young people are grappling with are ones everyone faces down. As they find ways to fight this, coming to realize all the many ways they may not be so easily able to, there is something both genuinely heartfelt yet quietly haunting about it.

As befits the son of the late Ryuichi Sakamoto (and director of acclaimed documentary Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus) Sora displays a subtly fervent faith in music as perhaps the ultimate expression of nascent individuality, and therefore, ever and eternally, a threat to regimes that rely on conformity and obedience.

Happyend outlines two kinds of responses to a future that seems bleaker by the hour: one is abdication, the other resistance. But the split between the two is never clear-cut and Neo Sora imbues the film with doubts, hesitation, and hope in equal measure.

Capturing that transitional moment when seemingly permanent adolescent ties suddenly appear uncertain, this is a melancholy drama laced with notes of anger and disquiet, but also resilience.

This depiction of young people facing up against school and state authoritarianism lacks a certain urgency, despite its manifest intelligence and craft.

Sora Neo struggles to balance the immediacy of adolescent angst with the long-range outlook of using the students’ experience as a canary in the coal mine for society at large.