From up on Poppy Hill (2012)

In Brief: A young girl, Umi (Masami Nagasawa) helps her Grandmother run a board house while her mother finishes her Studies in America. Amoung her morning activities are preparing breakfast for the houses tennants, prepping lunch for her sibling and raising a signal flag for her deceased father. During a school demonstration to save the students existing and decaying club house, she makes a connection with the enthusiastic Shun(Junichi Okada). The two are undeniably attracted to one another, but soon find they're relationship may be more complicated then it seems.

From up on Poppy Hill is the latest film from the legendary Studio Ghibli, and the second film by Goro Miyazaki (Son of the Legendary Hayao Miyazaki), and its probably the least Ghibli feeling movie in awhile. Normally, they're films have a healthy dose of fantasy to them (at least the recent ones), But Poppy Hill sits with the studios more drama based films, joining films like Grave of the Fireflies, Ocean Waves and Only Yesterday). It's nowhere near as dark as Firefly's, in fact, its not really dark at all. The film is quite light hearted for the most part.
While the central part of the story is about the relationship between Umi and Shun, the background story about the students of the school joining together and trying to save they're club house is great. Seeing the students breath new life into the building is kinda cool, and is the most fantastical element of the film. The relationship between Umi and Shun is sort of retrained in comparison, for obvious reasons when you get into the film, and the stories pay off, while nice, doesn't feel like it goes anywhere.
All that said, its a step up from Goro's last film, Tales of Earthsea, and it can be a fun distraction for a few hours. Also of interest is, the cinema I went to see this in, accidentally started showing the English Dub of the film, over the first few minutes, before starting over with the subtitled release. Those few minutes were clear to represent a slightly different delivery, with the English dub putting a lot into setting up the scene and time of the film.