Review: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

Posted on June 5, 2024 by philipbrasor

Often attendant information about a movie that has nothing to do with its content will alter one’s outlook of it. My misgivings about this heartfelt but unconvincing British melodrama were alleviated somewhat when I learned it was based on a Booker-longlisted novel that the author herself adapted for the screen. Having not read the book, I can only imagine what it is like, but most of the problems I have with the script and the treatment of the subject matter likely stemmed from that age-old difficulty in adapting fiction, especially when it contains free-floating passages of fantasy. The story is about a quiet pensioner, Harold Fry (Jim Broadbent), who receives a letter informing him that a former work colleague, Queenie (Linda Bassette), is dying in a hospice. He jots off some words of sympathy and encouragement and walks out to post the letter. But he doesn’t post it. Feeling guilty about the perfunctory tone of the missive after a fortuitous encounter with a store clerk, he decides to deliver it himself, and sets out on a 600-mile walk to the hospice, without even telling his wife, Maureen (Penelope Wilton), who becomes quite frantic when he doesn’t return.

The fantasy aspect isn’t in the journey itself, but rather in what it engenders: A pilgrimage, per the title, that attracts the attention of hundreds of people who misunderstand Harold’s real intentions but nevertheless see him as a symbol of the kind of sincere humanity that they believe has gone missing in modern society. The irony of all this is that the word is spread by social media, a phenomenon that would seem to be one of the main culprits in the dehumanization process that Harold’s followers (literally, in this case) condemn. This fantasy demands that Harold encounter a cross-section of characters who represent a wide range of existential insecurity: a Slovakian immigrant physician (Monika Gossman) who cleans toilets for a living and treats Harold’s blisters for free; an 18-year-old junkie (Daniel Frogson) who thinks that joining Harold will give him a reason to live; a stray dog, the only pilgrim who sticks with Harold until the end. Meanwhile, Maureen stews in her resentments as the author-scenarist, Rachel Joyce, remains coy about Maureen’s view of and relationship to Queenie; and Harold has visions of his only son, who seems to have suffered from a mental illness. Though everything is explained in good time, director Hettie Macdonald can’t quite get the pacing right, and the exposition trips all over itself in an attempt to reach a satisfying conclusion. 

Such stories are easier to work out on paper, so I imagine the novel is more moving in its explication of Harold’s peculiar failures as a father, husband, and workmate, because that’s what the movie comes down to. Broadbent manifests these qualities with gusto and sensitivity, but the whole pilgrimage circus blunts whatever emotional angles Joyce intended. The movie obviously affected many people because it was an unexpected hit in the UK, but its foundational implausibility, evident right there in the title, is difficult to overcome.

Opens June 7 in Tokyo at Human Trust Cinema Yurakucho (03-6259-8608), Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011).

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry home page in Japanese

photo (c) Pilgrimage Films Limited and the British Film Institute 2022

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Media watch: Residential streets finally recognized as war zones by the police

Posted on June 4, 2024 by philipbrasor

Last month, the National Police Agency announced it would halve vehicular speed limits on so-called seikatsu doro, meaning residential streets. In particular, the new limits would cover roads that pass through residential neighborhoods and which don’t have center lines or sidewalks. Typically, these roads are narrower than public roads, with the NPA designating them as being no more than 5.5 meters in width. Since in most cases these roads do not have marked speed limits, it means vehicles can drive up to 60 kilometers per hour on them unless otherwise indicated. The new plan would thus reduce speed limits on these roads to 30kph. 

According to a May 23 article in the Asahi Shimbun, automobile accidents involving child pedestrians has been on the increase in recent years. The most dangerous months for child pedestrians tend to be May and June. Just last April a 3rd grade girl in Aichi Prefecture was killed by a truck, and in May there were accidents in Sapporo and Hamamatsu in which two 4th graders were killed. All three accidents happened on residential streets either at crosswalks or along the sides of roads. The NPA reports that between 2019 and 2023, 4,430 children of elementary school age or younger were either killed or seriously injured in vehicular accidents. More happened in May and June, and the most common time period for such accidents was between 3 and 5 in the afternoon, when children tend to be walking home from school. 

A journalist who specializes in traffic issues told the Asahi that after children enter the new school year in April they become acclimatized to the route they take to school and may become less cautious, which could lead to more accidents, so drivers need to be more alert. In fact, she says, drivers should avoid school zones altogether, an opinion that likely will not get much traction in real life. Though legally pedestrians have the right-of-way in all traffic encounters, practically speaking there are few measures put in place—be they related to infrastructure or police presence—that restrict vehicular traffic for the safety of pedestrians, whether adults or children. 

A May 31 broadcast on FNN News attempted to explain the infrastructural problems related to residential streets, which are defined by “a lot of foot traffic,” including children walking to school. The main problem with residential streets, especially in older neighborhoods, has to do with visibility and maneuverability. Owing to poor city planning, property owners are subject to few restrictions with regard to what they can do within their borders. They can build structures right up to their property lines, which means stone walls, fences, and even residential structures can be flush with the street. Such structures limit visibility for both drivers and pedestrians and effectively make the street feel even narrower than it already is. 

In relation to the new speed limits, residential streets are defined by another aspect that is less remarked upon, according to FNN: they are often used as shortcuts by vehicles that are trying to get from one main thoroughfare to another in order to save time. If there are no speed limits indicated, then drivers assume it is the national default, 60kph, thus making these streets even more dangerous for pedestrians. An FNN film crew went to one residential street in Edogawa Ward, Tokyo, that was 5.5 meters wide and measured the speed of vehicles passing through. They found the average was 42kph, which is still considered dangerous for such a narrow street. In addition to setting speed limits, the authorities can also install speed bumps, but as the NPA has said, the amount of labor and cost involved in setting up physical safety measures on all residential streets nationwide is unfeasible, so a blanket speed limit of 30kph is a more practical solution.

But as one interviewee, who identifies himself as a professional “traffic accident investigator,” pointed out, if there are no signs indicating parameters, how is a driver to know that the street they are on qualifies as a “residential street” in accordance with the law? Of course, drivers should exercise common sense and assume that if they are on a street that is relatively narrow and offers less visibility than a main thoroughfare, the 30kph speed limit applies, but the investigator seems to think that the new rules may simply sow confusion. In any case, such a rule is pointless without consistent enforcement by police. Drivers must believe they will be cited if the new regulation is to have any effect. There is an existing law that says when passing a pedestrian on the side of a road, a vehicle must yield at least 1.5 meters, an action that becomes more difficult on narrower streets. Under such circumstances, following reduced speed limits is even more important as the slower speed allows the driver to brake in time to avoid hitting a pedestrian. 

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Media watch: Japan contends with the consequences of a sellers’ job market

Posted on May 30, 2024 by philipbrasor

A front page story in the May 25 print edition of the Asahi Shimbun reported that the overwhelming recruitment rate for new graduates continued this spring, with 98.1 percent of people graduating from universities in 2024 securing work, the highest rate since the labor and education ministries started keeping such records in 1997. The newspaper notes that the numbers were not influenced by any “outside forces,” such as the COVID pandemic, and that employers are aggressively hiring new staff amidst a pronounced labor shortage. As a point of comparison, the lowest graduate employment rate was 91 percent in 2011, when the economy was still reeling from the 2008 world recession and which, if you think about it, doesn’t really sound that low. But this is Japan, where actual university studies and subsequent career paths aren’t necessarily coherent, but more on that in a bit. Except for a dip during COVID, the recruitment rate has steadily risen ever since. The rate for high school graduates was just as impressive: 98 percent, the same rate as last year. 

A labor ministry official told Asahi that they believe this sellers’ market will continue indefinitely, a perspective that the newspaper qualifies in a second related article on page 7 and which discusses the problem of “mismatch” for new employees at Japanese trading companies. Often new employees are assigned to divisions or sections that they are either not suited for or find unappealing. Traditionally, the trading company would decide on an assignment during the initial training period based on the employee’s character and other criteria, but since such initial assignments can have a profound effect on the employee’s career, sometimes the employee is not satisfied with the assignment, so the companies are endeavoring to get a better idea of its new recruits’ desires and strong points during the university interview sessions and then place them in jobs they prefer. 

For example, Sumitomo Corporation plans to introduce a placement system called Will Selection starting next spring where company recruiters and recruits determine what position the recruit will fill after starting work. The system will apply to 30 percent of new recruits, who will be able to choose from some 30 job descriptions. The remaining 70 percent will follow the “regular selection process,” wherein assignments are determined after the recruit starts working. A publicity rep for the company told Asahi that in recent years students have had a more definite idea of what kind of work they want to do, as well as more detailed career goals. Consequently, many who find that those desires are not met after they start working leave the company early on. Mitsui & Co., Ltd., has already started a similar program, with recruits offered the chance to choose the section where they will work, though they will need to go through a probationary period in the section “in order to understand the nature of the work more comprehensively.” Marubeni adopted such a system in 2021 called Career Vision Recruitment wherein section assignments are determined prior to entering the company. 

The exceptions are C. Itoh, which offered some recruits the choice of assignment as far back as 1998, but has since rescinded the policy; and Mitsubishi Corporation, which has always maintained the right to make such decisions since the company believes the new employee cannot really understand which section best suits them until they start working for the company and gain experience. If they later feel dissatisfied they can always negotiate for a change in assignment.

Though trading companies are not unique to Japan, the traditional Japanese system of recruitment and advancement are especially suited to trading company operations, which mostly have to do with facilitating business deals for a wide variety of industry and corporate needs. Japanese companies tend to hire new blood based more on the university one attends than on the subject one studied because, in the end, the company will want the employee to bend to the particular nature of the company, which means becoming accommodated to its culture and practices. Even students who majored in technical fields, such as engineering, will not necessarily be hired to use those technical skills. Consequently, allowing recruits to choose what field they will work in is revolutionary in a sense, and Asahi seemed to be limiting its article to trading companies in order to show how desperate the private sector is to hold on to new employees, because one of the more salient characteristics of a sellers’ labor market is higher turnover.

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Review: The Zone of Interest

Posted on May 23, 2024 by philipbrasor

By now everyone knows how director Jonathan Glazer keeps the horrors of the Auschwitz death camp out of sight in his movie about the commandant of the camp, Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), and his family, who live in well-appointed digs right next door. The purpose, of course, is not to show how those horrors were carried out in an efficient manner, but how the success of Höss’s administrative ideas made his family’s life pleasant and upwardly mobile. In fact, the only overt drama in the story is how Höss becomes a victim of this success. He is promoted to the top post of concentration camp management, which means he has to move from Poland back to Germany, a transfer that his wife, Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), refuses to accommodate, since she’s put so much work into a home that she thinks she will occupy forever. At this point in the film, the cognitive dissonance has become deafening, but Hedwig’s temper tantrum at the news of the promotion pegs her as someone who has no critical faculties whatsoever—why would anyone want to spend their life a hundred yards from a factory of death? 

Up to that point, however, Glazer endeavors to create a kind of idyll in the leafy environs outside the camp. Per his habit, he kept his cameras hidden during shooting, so that the actors didn’t exactly know how they were being filmed, and there’s an offhanded casualness to the performances that work to increase the creep factor. As Hedwig tries on a fur coat in the privacy of her bedroom you suddenly realize it used to belong to one of the prisoners next door, and when she then finds some lipstick in the pocket and applies it to her mouth, it’s difficult to suppress one’s gag reflex. Occasionally, someone talks about the smoke from the chimneys or muffled screams float over the wall, but for the most part the evidence of wholesale killing is implied, as when Hedwig jokes about a “Jewess” trying to hide her diamonds in some toothpaste. The most direct evidence of mass murder is Höss explaining plans for a new crematorium to a committee as if he were making a PowerPoint presentation. What’s notable in these juxtapositions is that Höss’s children and wife know full well what’s going on next door and can lead lives of simple pleasure with that knowledge. The sound of the machinery of death is ever-present, and simply becomes the soundtrack to their life of comfort. 

In fact, it’s the sound design and actual score that makes the movie more than the sum of its tacit depravities. That persistent hum becomes maddening to the viewer, and Mica Levi’s Pärt-like score constantly reminds you that this is a horror movie. Glazer also throws in narrative non sequiturs that show there is resistance in the vicinity of the camp, and in the end he adds an editorial note by showing the Auschwitz memorial as it is run today, a move that baffled me, since it seems to be making the same point as the fictional sequences in that systematic work is a universal ideal. I’m sure I read that  part wrong, but the rest is implacably straightforward.

In German and Polish. Opens May 24 in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060), Toho Cinemas Chanter Hibiya (050-6868-5001), Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011), Human Trust Cinema Shibuya (03-5468-5551), Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (050-6868-5024).

The Zone of Interest home page in Japanese

photo (c) Two Wolves Films Limited, Extreme Emotions BIS Limited, Soft Money LLC and Channel Four Television Corporation 2023

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Review: The Teachers’ Lounge

Posted on May 17, 2024 by philipbrasor

You have to hand it to the Germans. Their capacity for self-examination, which often leads to self-condemnation, seems almost limitless, and can lead to inadvertent injustices, as seen by the way the country’s strict definition of antisemitism has recently affected the free speech rights of artists and scholars, even Jewish ones. Several weeks ago, I reviewed the German movie System Crasher, which strongly criticized the social welfare system as it was applied to an extremely violent 9-year-old girl. In similar fashion, this Oscar-nominated public school-set drama, directed by Ilker Çatak, presents what amounts to an insoluble situation and the various ways that those in authority make it even worse, even when the intentions are good. This latter aspect is brought to bear on the protagonist, an idealistic teacher named Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch), who is in practically every scene in the movie, even when the POV occasionally shifts slightly. Carla teaches seventh grade, and as the movie begins the faculty is dealing with a series of thefts they believe were carried out by one of the students. Several teachers, adhering to the school’s no-tolerance policy in a very literal sense, have dragged Carla into an interrogation of student class officers to get them to snitch on anyone they suspect of being the culprit. Carla is uncomfortable and tries to object but her objections are over-ridden. When the teachers use the intelligence they squeezed out of their reluctant charges to carry out a search of students’ wallets, it’s clear who they think did it, and the followup investigation into this individual, though it produces no evidence, thoroughly upends Carla’s job, since the boy, the child of Turkish immigrants, is in her class. 

Carla is thus thrust into a situation whose operating principles—find the thief at all costs—clash with her own, and then starts to wonder if the thief really is a student, especially after she sees a fellow teacher steal change from the coffee fund. So she sets a trap for the thief on her own and catches an administrative employee, Ms. Kuhn (Eva Löbau), in the act. Ms. Kuhn, even when presented with evidence, vehemently denies the charge, and all hell breaks loose, because Carla’s method of entrapment entailed a de facto invasion of privacy. However, that isn’t the worst of it. Ms. Kuhn’s son, Oskar (Leonard Stettnisch), is Carla’s star pupil, and once rumors spread he decides to give Carla back what she’s wrought, and she becomes not only a suspect herself, but the subject of speculation with regard to her provenance (she’s Polish, not German), her politics, and her mental wherewithal. 

Çatak frames this all as a thriller, with each loop of Carla’s downward spiral telegraphed a few beats before it manifests into something uglier than the previous loop. Just as Carla tries to make “every matter a teachable one,” Çatak exploits every twist and turn in the story as a cautionary device. Moreover, he sets everyone against Carla, both the self-consciously defensive faculty and staff, and the sensitive and highly radicalized (by social media) student body, whose innate adolescent cruelty is exacerbated by their over-zealous sense of “solidarity.” A little of this can go a long way, but Çatak piles it on in ever heavier loads to the point that the viewer’s endurance is stretched beyond a credible limit. The movie becomes almost untenable once Carla is driven to hallucinating and the students’ sneering scorn toward her becomes a leitmotif. And while I appreciated how Çatak didn’t tie things up neatly in the end, his dramatic gamesmanship left me so emotionally drained that I didn’t have the energy to imagine what might happen beyond the last scene; which makes me think that being drained was the whole point.

In German, English and Polish. Opens May 17 in Tokyo at Shinjuku Musashinokan (03-3354-5670), Cine Switch Ginza (03-3561-0707).

The Teachers’ Lounge home page in Japanese

photo (c) if…Productions/ZDF/arte MMXXII

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Review: Bob Marley: One Love

Posted on May 16, 2024 by philipbrasor

In some ways, this movie about reggae legend Bob Marley, which takes in the years 1976-78—after he had already become a superstar—relies on narrative notes that one doesn’t usually find in big budget biopics. It seems more interested in capturing the vibe that gave Marley his distinctive sound and outlook than in cycling through the events of his life. At the same time, it gives short shrift to the historical environment that surrounded him. We see and hear a lot about the political and social strife that forced Marley to leave Jamaica for most of this period after he and his wife are shot by would-be assassins, but almost no explanation of the source of that unrest. Similarly, his popularity is taken for granted, and thus the viewer doesn’t quite understand just how revolutionary an album Exodus was both musically and lyrically, only that he spent an inordinate amount of time trying to sell it to the white music insiders in the UK who wanted him to produce another Natty Dread. The only recognizable through-line is Marley’s marriage, which has its foreseeable ups-and-downs owing to the fact that he and his family had to leave Jamaica (Bob to England, Rita and the kids to Delaware, where her mother lived) and Bob’s serial infidelities and jealousies, but even in that regard the director, Reinaldo Marcus Green, can’t keep his attention focused long enough to make Marley’s connubial life comprehensible.

If the movie retains interest for anyone with more than minimal knowledge of Bob Marley the artist, it’s due to the performances. Kingsley Ben-Adir doesn’t look much like Marley, but he assumes a loose, colloquial manner that feels correct for the themes if not necessarily for the man himself. And Lashana Lynch gives Rita Marley a fiery temperament that suits the rough-and-tumble life she entered into once she moved from backup singer to wife and mother, all the while maintaining a creative partnership with Bob, even if the movie subsequently renders her merely worshipful. The acting sometimes compensates for the raggedy script, which throws incidents at the audience as if they were random clues to a mystery the movie has no intention of solving. Marley’s big tour of Europe is relegated to a hasty, poorly edited montage. The African tour, which in the beginning of the film is presented as a hugely important project, is aborted without so much as a whimper (though he did eventually make it there before he died), thus leaving the One Love Peace Concert, which was supposed to unite all Jamaicans, as the climactic cinematic moment that has to share screen time with Marley dying of cancer, an element that seems almost gratuitously injected into the movie. 

The viewer is occasionally treated to some flashbacks that show how immensely talented Marley was as a teen and his close association with the Wailers, who are treated cursorily despite their own importance as individual musicians. Even Island Records’ Chris Blackwell (James Norton) feels superfluous. A message at the beginning from Marley’s son Ziggy attests to the movie’s “authenticity,” a claim Green struggles to put across with any conviction. 

Opens May 17 in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060), Toho Cinemas Hibiya (050-6868-5068), 109 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku (0570-060-109), Shinjuku Wald 9 (03-5369-4955), Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063), Shibuya Cine Quinto (03-3477-5905), Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (050-6868-5024).

Bob Marley: One Love home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2024 Paramount Pictures

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Media watch: Mayor of town on front line of possible Taiwan dispute demands constitutional revision

Posted on May 12, 2024 by philipbrasor
Location of Yonaguni Island

On May 3, which is Constitution Day in Japan, prominent right wing pundit Yoshiko Sakurai held a symposium in Tokyo on the Constitution, which she wants to amend in order to establish the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) as a full-fledged national military body and remove any restrictions regarding belligerence. One of the speakers was Kenichi Itokazu, mayor of Yonaguni, the westernmost island of Japan, located 509 kilometers from the main island of Okinawa and fairly close to Taiwan. Itokazu has spent most of the last 30 years lobbying the government to build an SDF post on Yonaguni, which would be the closest municipality in Japan to any action that would arise if China decides to use force in bringing Taiwan under its direct control. In fact, Yonaguni is so close to Taiwan that it falls within the island’s air defense zone. 

In his speech, which was summarized in the May 7 edition of the Sankei Shimbun, Itokazu says he found it “humiliating” 30 years ago that his town had no national defense capabilities. More to the point, there were no military facilities, either Japanese or American, on any of the islands that stretched between Yonaguni and Okinawa. Then in 2016, a Ground Self-Defense Force post was established on Yonaguni, and 3 years later posts were built on Miyakojima and Amami Oshima. Last year, one was set up on Ishigaki Island, thus demonstrating the government’s will to “resolutely protect the Sakishima archipelago.” 

But Itokazu feels it isn’t enough, because “when we consider the situation surrounding the Senkaku islands,” which are claimed by Japan, China, and Taiwan, “and the Taiwan situation,” there’s always the problem of Japan’s Constitution, which forbids Japan from going to war with another country. He mentions how the American GHQ under General Douglas MacArthur “thoroughly crushed” Japan when it forced the present Constitution on the nation during the postwar occupation because it feared the “courage” that the “people of Yamato” demonstrated during the Pacific War. The resulting document denies Japan the right to engage in military action, which, as mayor of Yonaguni, Itokazu finds unbelievable since Japan has a responsibility to defend Taiwan, a former Japanese colony, from China if China decides to annex the island. In that case “the Taiwan Strait issue becomes a Yonaguni Strait issue.” 

Consequently, the Constitution must be revised so as to change the laws that apply to the SDF and include a “state of emergency” clause. In other words, it must “recognize” Japan’s right to engage in war. Otherwise, Japan cannot respond adequately and quickly to states of emergency that could arise with regard to Taiwan and the Senkakus, not to mention natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and typhoons. Japanese lawmakers must move to change the Constitution in order to “throw off the yoke of self-restriction” that has been imposed by the current Constitution, and they must act now so that Japan can defend Taiwan and their shared values of freedom and democracy. Japan’s very existence is at stake. 

In Dec. 2022, Asahi Shimbun ran an interview with Itokazu where he said pretty much the same thing but without centering his views on the Constitution. The interviewer does ask him about the possibility of using diplomacy to ease tensions in the region, since the present Constitution implies with its refusal to recognize Japan’s right to wage war that diplomacy is the only legal means Japan has to solve security problems, and the mayor agrees that such efforts should be made, though he also says that Japan is “very weak when it comes to diplomacy and intelligence gathering,” so if diplomacy fails Japan could be the object of Chinese aggression. 

Both the interview and the speech suggest that Itokazu is mainly advocating for deterrence. As the interviewer points out, if Japan fights with the U.S. to defend Taiwan from China, any place in Japan with an SDF presence will become a target, but Itokazu says that if there is an SDF presence on Yonaguni then “we can feel safe,” which sounds overly optimistic for someone living on the front lines of what could turn out to be a shooting war.

But that’s the possibility that the Japanese government doesn’t like to talk about in its drive to increase its military capabilities, because if a shooting war does start between China and Taiwan, and the U.S. joins in with Japan by its side, Japan will suffer greatly regardless of the amount of hardware it’s bought and the number of troops at its command. The U.S. isn’t going to worry about an attack on its homeland because it’s too far away, but any Japanese forces will become targets in a war with China, which means the Japanese homeland itself will become a target. Nobody in the government or in the mainstream media talks about that reality except in theoretical terms (we need more missiles). Other than Sankei, the only daily newspapers who covered Itokazu’s speech were the Okinawa Times, since Okinawa, being the prefecture nearest to any presumed conflict, knows it would be in harm’s way; and the Asahi Shimbun, which limited coverage to one paragraph. If the government really wants to develop a full-fledged military capability to defend neighbors from outside aggression, it has to tell all the people of Japan what that would entail in a worst case scenario. 

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Review: Anyone But You

Posted on May 10, 2024 by philipbrasor

In its own super-contrived way, the plot dynamics of Will Gluck’s rom-com, Anyone But You, should offer assurances to those of us who have always appreciated the genre for the way it’s challenged good screenwriters to come up with witty sexual banter. Essentially, it’s about two beautiful people who spend a sexless night together completely misunderstanding each other and then embarking on a fake romance in order to achieve dubious goals that only prove to the audience how insecure they are without knowing it. Unfortunately, the mechanics of the actual scheme have little in common with anything that resembles reality, which wouldn’t normally be a problems, but even among the upper middle class types that populate Hollywood rom-coms these days the action on display is baffling. More to the point, Gluck cast two able comic actors whose roles and lines take scant advantage of their talents, thus forcing them to fall back on charms that are, let’s say, less cerebral. For Glen Powell, it’s his abs; for Sydney Sweeney, her cleavage. 

After their one-night misadventure, Ben (Powell) and Bea (Sweeney) end up attending the wedding of Bea’s sister Halle (Hadley Robinson) to Ben’s friend, Claudia (Alexandra Shipp), in Australia, where one of the brides is from. Bea pretends to be with Ben in order to stave off ex-fiancee Jonathan (Darren Barnet), whom her parents want her to get back with, while Ben plays along to make his own ex, Margaret (Charlee Fraser), who is also attending the wedding, jealous and drop her Australian bimbo BF (Joe Davidson). For the most part, Powell and Sweeney stir up believable chemistry through their playacting as moony lovers, but the situations dreamed up by Gluck and his co-scenarist Ilana Wolpert can’t quite split the difference between crazy and cringe—even when cringe is the obvious goal, as when Bea and Ben attempt “full Titanic” to distract and end up falling into Sydney harbor. The only really funny aspect of the script is that most of the people at the wedding see straight through the subterfuge, but Gluck doesn’t know what to do with this idea and lets it run out of gas before allowing the movie to sputter to a bland, predictable climax. 

Even the exceptionally large and recognizable supporting cast feels superfluous in that they trade in tired stereotypes (the dads get high together; Margaret’s BF is a pillow-headed surfer dude) without being given the opportunity to make sufficient fun of those stereotypes. And the token dramatic moment—Bea has to confess to her parents that she’s not going to become a lawyer, as they wished—totally fails to make its point, which is to reveal the self-doubt she’s been toiling under her whole, privileged life. In the end, as you wonder whether you’ve seen this rom-com before, you realize that you don’t really care. 

Now playing in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060), Toho Cinemas Hibiya (050-6868-5068), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063), Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (050-6868-5024).

Anyone But You home page in Japanese

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Review: The Lost Weekend: A Love Story

Posted on May 9, 2024 by philipbrasor

In 1973 and 1974, John Lennon lived apart from Yoko Ono during a licentious interlude that Lennon himself dubbed his “lost weekend.” His companion was May Pang, a Chinese-American woman who had become Lennon and Ono’s personal assistant sometime before the breakup. It’s fairly well known that Ono, in fact, engineered the affair as a means of keeping tabs on her husband, who had already strayed quite far sexually. In the years since Lennon’s death, Pang has exploited the affair by writing two books about it, and this documentary feels as if it’s her idea, since the story is told exclusively from her point of view, even if the narration’s jaunty, carefree tone feels highly mediated. And while she reveals things about both Lennon and Ono that make them look like future members of co-dependents anonymous, there’s also many factoids about the Lennons’ business arrangements and how John’s separation from Yoko spurred flights of creativity. Granted, one’s opinion of the fruits of that creativity may not be as enthusiastic as Pang’s, who boldly pats herself on the back for cultivating it, but you can hardly blame her for believing that that was the case.

It’s not surprising, then, that Ono comes across as the manipulating witch that some people have tried to portray her as. The narrative arc bends toward the disclosure that Lennon may, in fact, have been secretly in touch with his wife during the entire Pang affair without the latter’s knowing it, and when he finally returned to Ono, Pang describes his actions as that of an abused puppy. Though she took it as a betrayal at the time, in hindsight she felt it was inevitable because that’s the kind of people they were. Lennon was notoriously insecure, and Pang is frank about his violence, especially toward women. She takes credit for not only reuniting John with his first son, Julian, who provides plenty of on-screen character testimony to Pang’s positive effect on his father’s temperament, but also single-handedly elevates first wife Cynthia as an unfairly wronged woman. She also lends rare insight into several famous anecdotes, such as the infamous drunken tampon incident at a club in Los Angeles with the so-called Hollywood Vampires (which included Alice Cooper, Micky Dolenz, and Harry Nilsson) and the way Phil Spector ruined Lennon’s rock’n roll covers album. 

The press, perhaps at Ono’s orchestration, have mostly portrayed the lost weekend as a time when Lennon was out of control, but Pang claims, without a hint of irony, that Lennon was “the most himself” during her time with him. My initial reaction to this intelligence was doubt mixed with a certain degree of awe, because with Yoko now well into her tenth decade on the planet, Pang could end up getting in the last word on the matter. 

Opens May 10 in Tokyo at Kadokawa Cinema Yurakucho (03-6268-0015), Cine Quinto Shibuya (03-3477-5905), Cinema Qualite Shinjuku (03-3352-5645).

The Lost Weekend home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2021 Lost Weekend, LLC

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Review: Honey Sweet

Posted on May 3, 2024 by philipbrasor

Yoo Hae-jin is one of those movie stars who would seem to flourish as a character actor but somehow is flourishing as a leading man; though, granted, the people he plays are not what you would normally think of as leading man material. And yet he might be the most versatile male actor in Korean cinema. This goofy romantic comedy seems almost custom made for his peculiar skills. Yoon plays Cha Chi-ho, a dedicated food chemist for a snack company whose diet consists of nothing more than the chips he develops through trial-and-error, McDonald’s takeout, and the occasional fried chicken delivery. His large collection of alarm clocks speaks to his OCD predilections, which chart out every second of the day in his mind. As a corollary, he’s not just socially dysfunctional, but also interpersonally illiterate. When his good-for-nothing brother, Seok-ho (Cha In-pyo), comes to his apartment after being released from prison, Chi-ho is welcoming and totally oblivious to Seok-ho’s gambling addiction and scofflaw temperament. He doesn’t even know that he’s the guarantor for a bank loan his brother took out until a loan officer calls him to say that payments are way overdue.

The loan officer is single mother Il-yeong (Kim Hee-sun), who is pretty much the opposite of Chi-ho: brash, uninhibited, with a quick temper and a potty mouth. When she sees Chi-ho waiting his turn at the bank and making funny faces at a small child, something clicks in her. It’s not love at first sight, but more like, “This guy’s weird in a funny way. What makes him tick?” She soon learns that he’s weird in a weird way, but is attracted to him anyway, mainly because he’s completely different from her ex, who knocked her up and then took off. Her now college-age daughter, in fact, became a championship marksman so that if he ever returned (which, of course, he does, eventually) she could shoot him. 

Though hardly a deep movie or, for that matter, an uproariously funny one, Honey Sweet keeps dropping pleasant surprises as it makes its leisurely, detour-strewn way toward a qualified happy ending. Director Lee Han and scriptwriter Lee Byeong-heon mostly lead with their gut, and while the jokes are hit-and-miss, the tone is so good-natured about Chi-ho’s sexual awkwardness that you want to show it to any Hollywood filmmaker thinking of adding a romcom to their resume. It’s like The 40-Year-Old Virgin but with a more realistic idea of why someone is a virgin at the age of 40. That said, most of the situations, which invariably involve food, are patently ludicrous. Nobody could be this naive and remain breathing at the threshold of middle age. 

In Korean. Now playing in Tokyo at Marunouchi Piccadilly (050-6875-0075), Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011).

Honey Sweet home page in Japanese

photo (c) Mindmark Inc. & Movierock

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