Review: Elevation

Posted on July 23, 2025 by philipbrasor

Monster movies and so-called post-apocalyptic fiction are usually predicated on high-concept gimmicks. Sometimes the gimmick has a gloss of scientific credibility, such as the theory in The Last of Us that a killer fungus which has taken over the world emerged because of global warming; but in most other cases it’s an arbitrary convenience, like the idea in the Quiet Place movies that the murderous extra-terrestrials have super-accurate hearing but no visual capability. These phenomena thus become the overriding premise for all plot considerations. In Elevation, the insect-like monsters come from the ground, and the gimmick is that they cannot pass above 6,000 feet in elevation, which is why all of earth’s survivors live above that altitude. Director George Nolfi does an excellent job of creating a world that adheres to this premise without really making it believable. Why 6,000 feet? Why do the monsters only attack humans and no other life forms? Toward the end, we are offered something like answers to these questions, but they only bring up more questions.

The setting is the Rockies, where Will (Anthony Mackie) lives with his 11-year-old son, Hunter (Danny Boyd Jr.), who, in the opening scene, sneaks below the danger line just for the opportunity to see how others might be living. It’s a poignant gesture that shows how isolation eats at the soul, especially for a little kid who lost his mother to the monsters, called reapers, after they emerged 3 years earlier. Though he just barely makes it back to the sparsely populated town where they live, he has another life-threatening problem: a respiratory condition that requires medicine that is almost out, thus requiring Will to venture to the city of Boulder in order to raid a hospital. In the end, he’s accompanied by two women, a hard-drinking physicist named Nina (Morena Baccarin), who spends her days testing a new type of ammunition she hopes will be effective against the so-far bullet-proof reapers; and Katie (Maddie Hasson), a stubborn outdoorsy type who is younger than Will and seems to have a beef with the older, endlessly cynical Nina. The bulk of Elevation involves these three trying to reach their destination and without passing below the safe line so as not to attract the attention of the reapers, and Nolfi is adept at ramping up the suspense without getting carried away. Along the way, the three principals are given ample opportunity to explicate their back stories, thus adding even more poignancy to their imperiled quest. 

For all the skill and intelligence that’s gone into the production, Elevation still can’t quite shake the implausibility of its central idea, even with a final segment reveal that seems intent on doing that. In many ways it’s better than its ilk, but the fact that it belongs to an ilk that’s so ubiquitous in the first place only means it has a lot to overcome. 

Opens July 25 in Tokyo at Human Trust Cinema Shibuya (03-5468-5551), Cinemart Shinjuku (03-5369-2831). 

Elevation home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2024 6000 Feet, LLC

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Media watch: Sanseito’s draft constitution a blueprint for repression and control

Posted on July 19, 2025 by philipbrasor
Campaign poster for Sanseito

The Upper House election campaign has been dominated by an unusual issue: foreign residents of Japan. The upstart Sanseito Party, whose motto is “Japanese People First,” has made it one of the planks of their platform, saying that foreign residents enjoy privileges that Japanese people do not. The media has jumped on the issue since it’s more interesting that taxes, inflation, and defense budgets, and a fair portion of the public has seemingly been persuaded to find merit in the discussion. Consequently, the current government has already formed an “administrative body” to address the public’s concerns over foreigners in Japan. 

Sanseito’s other policy proposals have received less coverage, but several media have studied the party’s draft Constitution, which Sanseito would endeavor to implement so as to replace the current Constitution if it ever became the ruling party. That’s a lot more ambitious than the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s Constitutional dreams, which are merely to amend the current charter so as to realize some of the LDP’s long-range goals and eliminate the American influence that has permeated the Constitution since it was drafted during the postwar occupation. 

However, the media outlet that has looked at the draft document more carefully than any other is Akahata, the news organ of the Japanese Communist Party (JCP). Given how a good portion of the cognoscenti feel about the JCP, Akahata’s views are likely not going to be talked about much, but they bear scrutiny. In a nutshell, Sanseito’s Constitution is a direct throwback to prewar Emperor Worship and calls to mind the authoritarian policies that persisted during the early Showa era, when Japan was spoiling for war in its bid to dominate Asia. Nowadays, such policies would need to be approved through the mechanisms of a nominal democracy, but the Sanseito Constitution spells it out conveniently.

In essence, Sanseito’s Constitution prescribes for the people of Japan responsibilities rather than rights, meaning it’s the total opposite in purpose from the current American-dictated Constitution, which starts out defining the status of the Emperor as being merely a symbol of the nation and its people. Sanseito goes further, stating that the Emperor is the ruler of Japan on account of his divine nature. More specifically, in Article 3, the Emperor approves the prime minister and all Cabinet members, which the present Constitution also prescribes, but only as a formality. Sanseito implies that the Emperor can deny government selections, thus giving him political power that the current Constitution does not grant. In addition, sovereignty is invested in the state, which at first glance would seem to be similar in meaning to the current Constitution since it doesn’t invest sovereignty in the Emperor. But as Akahata points out, the current Constitution actually invests sovereignty in the people, not the state, because Japan is a democracy. Making the state the sovereign transfers all power to the government without necessarily gaining the approval of the people.

As for rights, the only one (kenri) mentioned in Sanseito’s Constitution is in Article 8, which guarantees the right of all Japanese people to “enjoy healthy, culturally rich lives,” a purposely amorphous pronouncement that can be interpreted almost any way. There are no mentions of respect for individual autonomy, equality under the law, freedom of expression, freedom of academic pursuit, or any of the other rights guaranteed by the current Constitution. Instead, the document stresses obligations that are deemed inseparable from civic life.

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Review: Immaculate

Posted on July 17, 2025 by philipbrasor

It’s surprising that there hasn’t been more cinematic glosses on Rosemary’s Baby considering how irresistible is the notion of a child born of physical Satanic paternity, but this son-of-a-nun horror story isn’t much of an addition to the sub-genre. For the sake of not spoiling the fun I won’t go too deeply into the story, but suffice to say that the intention of the project depicted is not to produce an heir to the devil, but rather to get Christ back into the world via modern technology. In fact, part of the problem with the premise is how exactly this sleight-of-hand is carried out and why exactly it goes so wrong.

Sydney Sweeney plays only slightly against her publicized hype as Cecilia, a young American woman who, thanks to surviving a perilous childhood accident, decides to dedicate her life to God. For reasons that only become clear much later, she decides to take her vows at a convent in Italy, despite the fact that she speaks no Italian. Upon arrival she meets an array of colorful residents, including the cynical Sister Isabelle (Giulia Heathfield Di Renzi) and the friendly but obviously intimidated Sister Gwen (Benedetta Porcaroli). Naturally, there’s an authoritarian Mother Superior (Dora Romano) and a kindly, over-solicitous head priest, Father Tedeschi (Alvaro Morte), thus providing plenty of characters on which to project Cecilia’s wavering hold on her faith, which is tested by various crises, including the violent death of a fellow nun and visions of a red-masked coven. After Cecilia finally takes her vows the mysteries grow more threatening, culminating in a miracle pregnancy that everyone seems to have expected except, of course, Cecilia, who still insists she’s a virgin. 

Director Michael Mohan and writer Andrew Lobel set up some interesting ideas without taking advantage of them once it’s revealed that Cecilia is with child, in particular the peculiar relationships among the novices and the nature of the convent, where elderly nuns go to live out their last days. Though neither of these ideas are necessary to fortify the horror prerogatives of the film, they could have been developed in such a way as to make Cecilia’s dilemma richer and more involving. I’m all for movies that portray the Catholic Church as a bastion of evil purpose, but it needs to be handled with more imagination than this. 

In English and Italian. Opens July 18 in Tokyo at Shinjuku Musashinokan (03-3354-5670), Human Trust Cinema Shibuya (03-5468-5551).

Immaculate home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2024, BBP Immaculate, LLC

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Review: Strange Darling and Drop

Posted on July 11, 2025 by philipbrasor

Whiplash thrillers have become a kind of cottage industry in B-movie Hollywood, confounding critics who, in service to readers, have to circumvent crucial plot points so as to not spoil the intended effect. JT Mollner’s Strange Darling is more inventive than your average whiplash thriller, which is only saying so much since once the big surprise happens there isn’t a whole lot to sustain the story except the jokes, some of which are so good as to seem wasted on this kind of rote bloody actioner. 

From the beginning we’re told what we will be seeing: the rampage of a serial killer somewhere in rural Oregon. The action picks up with a bloodied woman (Willa Fitzgerald) trying to outdrive and then outrun a mustachioed, cocaine-snorting guy (Kyle Gallner) with a shotgun. Neither of these people are given names, but that’s OK because the setup feels comfortably familiar. The first thing that throws us off is the structure. After the chase is interrupted mid-sprint, the story goes back in time, and thereafter keeps jumping around temporally, shedding details that are often just as confounding as they are explicatory. Mollner knows how to keep the audience for this kind of film satisfied and throws in lots of casual violence, kinky sex, and witty Tarantinoesque dialogue to keep things interesting, or, at least, not grindingly predictable. It’s a good-looking movie thanks to actor Giovanni Ribisi’s debut as a cinematographer. His dreamy atmospherics enhance the often perverse nature of the storytelling. An especially strange interlude that takes place in the forest cabin of an aged hippie couple (Ed Begley Jr., Barbara Hershey) is renedered surreally funny—”We’re not really into him,” Begley says when their unexpected guest spies an unfinished jigsaw puzzle of Scott Baio—and proves Mollner’s expertise as a scene-setter. And the pop music score by Z Berg is always a hoot. 

But it’s pretty violent in ways that may be too gratuitous even for fans of the genre, thus undermining some of the script’s originality, as if Mollner had obligations he wasn’t sure how to handle and so threw everything he had into the gore. As witty and engaging as Strange Darling often is, the protracted ending is one of the most disturbing movie death scenes I’ve ever watched.

The switcheroo in Drop is less shocking and more conventional, and while the plot unfurls almost completely in real time, the work of keeping the various strands of the mystery intertwining is all there on the surface. Unlike in Strange Darling, the violence is contained, but the premise’s implausibility blunts the surprises.

A preface in media res introduces us to our protagonist, Violet (Meghann Fahy), who is being threatened with death by her husband. Though we don’t see the outcome of this encounter, we learn that it was he who died. It takes Violet two years to recover, during which time she has become a kind of celebrity DV counselor. On the night the story takes place she goes out on her first date since her brush with death, and she’s understandably nervous. Her sister (Violett Beane) is all encouragement and comes over to take care of Violet’s school-age son. 

The setup is meticulous but pokey. As Violet arrives at the expensive Chicago restaurant where she’s to meet the man she met on an app, she comes into contact with various people in a casual, offhanded way—a too-friendly pianist, a helpful female server, a middle aged man who is also meeting someone he connected with online, and a shadowy handsome guy who mistakes Violet for his own date and keeps checking his phone. Finally, her own date, a photographer named Henry (Brandon Sklenar), arrives and as they sit down for drinks she starts receiving AirDrop messages on her phone telling her to do certain things, otherwise her son will be killed. Convenient video of a masked man skulking around Violet’s house are dropped to make the threats stick. Naturally, if she tries to tell anyone, the boy will die.

To say that director Christopher Landon does a better than average job with this material is saying little. The point is to keep the viewer hanging on every little clue as Violet tries to figure out who in the restaurant, including her date, is behind the threats and why they are making them. Once she discovers the real target of the mystery villain’s scheme she’s halfway there, but for some reason the reveals are less satisfying than they could be, mainly because almost all take place on phone screens that we have to read. Normally, I wouldn’t complain about the plausability of this kind of thriller, but the situation draws so much attention to the “why?” of the setup that everything else feels perfunctory. 

Strange Darling now playing in Tokyo at Kadokawa Cinema Yurakucho (03-6268-0015), Shinjuku Wald 9 (03-5369-4955), Human Trust Cinema Shibuya (03-5468-5551).

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

Strange Darling home page in Japanese

Drop home page in Japanese

Strange Darling photo (c) 2024 Miramax Distribution Services, LLC

Drop photo (c) 2025 Universal Studios

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Review: A Different Man

Posted on July 10, 2025 by philipbrasor

Though Aaron Schimberg’s 70s-styled black comedy seems to be about how we address disability as a society, it’s really about casting, and not just its own choice of actors. The main plot line has to do with a small Off-Broadway theater production that hires the protagonist, an amateur actor who is conventionally handsome, to portray a man with a facial deformity. And while he is convincing in the role, eventually he’s usurped by another amateur actor who really does have a facial deformity but who is also more charming, charismatic, and generally likable than the so-called normal guy. If that description sounds overly reductive, it’s because it is: Schimberg loads the context with more pointed stuff than it can contain.

Our normal guy, Edward, starts out the movie with the facial deformity neurofibromatosis, a condition that makes him overly-conscious of the stares he believes he attracts. He makes a small living taking advantage of his condition by appearing in patronizing PSA videos about disabled people but also occasionally auditions for regular acting jobs, hoping that directors will look past his appearance to what he thinks is his talent. Edward resides in a ratty one bedroom apartment with a hole in the ceiling and lives from day-to-day in a constant funk. One day he meets his new next door neighbor, Ingrid (Renate Reinsve), a recent arrival from Norway who is a budding playwright. She takes to Edward and befriends him, though it’s soon clear that she sees him as material for a play. Meanwhile, Edward is undergoing experimental treatment by a group of loopy doctors whose attitude is hilariously patronizing, and—fantastically, implausibly—Edward loses the tumors on his face to reveal someone who most people would consider good-looking. Schimberg conveniently jumps ahead months to when Edward is now a successful real estate salesman thanks to his looks and living in a much nicer apartment, but, in essence, he’s still the off-puttingly insecure man he was before his transformation—which he has not revealed to anyone he knew previously, having assumed a new identity as “Guy.” When he passes by a theater auditioning actors for Ingrid’s new play called Edward, he tries out and gets the part, with Ingrid totally oblivious to the fact that Guy is, in fact, Edward. In his mind, he has achieved a perfect level of discreet payback toward those he believed tormented him in the past, but then a British bloke named Oswald (Adam Pearson), who really has neurofibromatosis, shows up to compliment the production and is talked into hanging around to provide straight-from-the-horse’s-mouth advice, subsequently dominating the production to Guy/Edward’s increasing consternation.

Edward’s “revenge” is thus turned against itself, because he can’t compete with Oswald’s natural worldly appeal. Not only do people in general not pay attention to Oswald’s appearance, but women fall easily into his arms due to his outgoing personality, something Edward/Guy could never develop because of what he really is. Though much of A Different Man feels forced in its almost sadistic treatment of Edward’s destructive self-image, it plays out with a disarmingly sardonic regard for human foible. Edward’s tragic trajectory would be ridiculously cruel if it also wasn’t so funny. 

Opens July 11 in Tokyo at Human Trust Cinema Yurakucho (03-6259-8608), Kino Cinema Shinjuku (03-5315-0978), Human Trust Cinema Shibuya (03-5468-5551).

A Different Man home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2023 Faces Off Rights LLC

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Media watch: Candidates won’t be talking about caregiving

Posted on July 8, 2025 by philipbrasor

Right now the issue gaining the most media attention leading up to the Upper House election later this month is the status of foreigners in Japan, owing mainly to controversial remarks made by the new opposition party Sanseito. It’s hard to know how much of the talk is bluster and how much is sincere because most of the candidates are avoiding the most obvious reason why so many foreigners are coming to Japan to live, which is Japan’s employment situation. The sector where the problem is most acute is elder caregiving. The government, meaning the ruling coalition led by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), has exacerbated the problem by cutting pay for caregivers who provide services under the kaigo (caregiving) insurance system, which is paid for by everyone in Japan once they turn 40. Due to the reduction in pay, it has become even more difficult to attract workers, and thus a vicious cycle has been generated: fewer caregivers means a loss of services that leads to more restrictive conditions for elegibility. In the meantime, costs are constantly rising. 

As a result, the kaigo insurance system hardly accomplishes what it was designed to do. It was started 25 years ago as the government acknowledged that Japan’s rapidly aging population had to be addressed in the long term, but over the years the system has had to charge more money while cutting services. Half of the funds are derived from premiums and the other half from taxes, specifically 25 percent from the central government, 12.5 percent from prefectures, and 12.5 percent from local governments. About 29 percent of funds from premiums are paid by contributors between the ages of 40 and 65, and 21 percent by people over 65. As of last year, the monthly premium for people over 65 averaged ¥6,014. People who fall behind on their payments are denied access to caregiving services. 

When it was launched in 2000, the kaigo system cost ¥3.6 trillion a year. As of three years ago, that amount had risen to ¥11.9 trillion. Medical costs in general, not counting those related to kaigo, amounted to ¥47.3 trillion in 2023. The average age of a kaigo caregiver is 44 and the average income ¥256,000 a month with two bonuses of ¥539,000 a year. After taxes and other deductions, the workers take home 70-80 percent of this amount. The turnover rate isn’t as high as it might seem—14.3 percent, which isn’t much higher than the general turnover rate—but there has always been a serious shortage of caregivers so the loss of manpower is more deeply felt. 

It’s generally assumed that the reason for the unpopularity of kaigo caregiving as a profession is not only the low pay but the difficulty of the job. Though caregivers receive some training, most are not prepared for the sheer physicality of the work, not to mention the mental strain of dealing with elderly people who may be suffering severe health problems. By cutting salaries, the LDP not only made caregivers’ lives more difficult, but indirectly told them that their work was not really that important. 

A recent broadcast of the web TV program Democracy Times covered a questionnaire distributed in April by several groups that support caregivers to the political parties who are running candidates in the Upper House election. The survey assumes that the kaigo situation is bad and getting worse, and essentially asks the parties what they plan to do about it if anything. Among the questions were those asking if the party would “rescind” the wage cuts recently implemented and raise pay; whether the portion of caregiving services paid directly by users would be increased from 10 percent to 20 percent, which is the current plan; whether the party would agree to change the categorization of caregiving—essentially tightening restrictions—in order to reduce necessary staff; and whether the tax portion that goes to kaigo services should be increased.

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Review: Harbin

Posted on July 4, 2025 by philipbrasor

So far I haven’t seen any reports about Japanese right-wing action against this South Korean film about the 1909 assassination of former Japan prime minister Hirobumi Ito by Korean independence fighter Ahn Jung-geun in the titular Russian-controlled Chinese city. Officially, Ahn is a terrorist in Japan and a martyr-hero in Korea, and since the movie is a Korean production it takes a sympathetic, albeit tough-minded look at his actions that will enrage elements in Japan who still think the country’s 1910 annexation and subsequent colonization of the Korean peninsula was legal and justified, regardless of the universally accepted record showing that Japanese rule was brutal. The fact that Harbin is being released theatrically in Japan is not particularly surprising—many Korean films about the colonial period that portray Japan unflatteringly are shown here—but this one would seem to be especially sensitive owing to Ito’s stature in Japanese annals as an important statesman. The only mainstream Korean movie I know of whose theatrical release was cancelled in Japan due to right wing pressure was Battleship Island, about forced Korean laborers on the coal mining island off the coast of Kyushu during World War II, but that film was clearly a work of fiction, since it depicted an uprising that never happened. It was mainly an exercise in action movie-making with no pretense to being historically accurate, though the cruelty on view is not at issue in Korea the way it is in Japan. Harbin is similarly a potboiler that contains fictional elements to make it more appealing as entertainment, but the assassination really happened, and most Koreans know the story by heart, so it would seem to be even more objectionable to Japanese nationalists.

The main reason it’s receiving a big opening here is its star, Hyun Bin, a bona fide heartthrob in Japan, who plays Ahn as a kind of sentimental fool. Driven by a powerful patriotism but swayed by humanist impulses that often have disastrous results, Ahn is initially positioned as someone who may be the least likely of his coterie to carry out such a dangerous mission. The movie opens with his men ambushing a Japanese regiment in a snowy forest, a set piece that director Woo Min-ho stages like something out of Braveheart, all slow motion carnage that stresses the utter savagery of the emotions involved. Ahn wins, in a sense, but feels that he has to stick to international war prisoner protocols and releases the commanding officer, Tatsuo Mori (Park Hoon), despite Mori’s plea to die like a loyal soldier of the Emperor. It’s Ahn’s first mistake, because Mori quickly regroups and returns at night to slaughter what’s left of Ahn’s men. When Ahn finally shows up at the underground Korean independence HQ in Vladivostok, he’s broken and humiliated, and vows to make good by assassinating Ito, who is scheduled to meet with Russian counterparts in Harbin. From there, the script follows the carefully plotted but predictable contours of a political thriller, with comrades being captured and tortured, moles throwing spanners into the best-laid plans, and a lot of meticulous character development to keep the viewer guessing as to who will break and who will remain loyal. We know Ahn succeeded, so the main interest is how he accomplished his mission against all odds. 

The melodrama comes fast and thick, with Ahn occasionally losing nerve and either attempting suicide or engaging in philosophical conversations that betray his lack of self-confidence, but it’s all a blind. The real dramatic action is among his confederates, who waffle between fatalistic cynicism and bull-headed determination with an eye to history (“If we don’t make sacrifices, no one will remember us”), and while the dialogue can be risible, the constant shifting of suspicions is intriguing. Even more interesting is the way the Japanese are portrayed. Mori is the requisite cartoon villain, all vicious vengeance and patronizing bluster, but Ito, played with sly transgressive intent by Lily Franky, is the only character who brings to life the movie’s historical dimensions. Lily’s Ito is condescending to the Koreans he once governed but his familiarity with their resentment keeps him on his toes—though, obviously, not enough. Lily’s intelligent approach to the material casts the movie on the whole as a missed opportunity. It might have been more interesting to continue focusing on Ahn after his capture and before his summary execution, during which time he reportedly convinced his Japanese jailers of the rightness of his cause. (It’s one reason he was hanged so soon.) That would have explained Ahn’s contrary character more convincingly. It also might have been more infuriating to Japanese revisionists, but it wouldn’t have aligned with the action prerogatives of the producers. 

In Korean, Japanese, Russian and Mandarin. Now playing in Tokyo at Kadokawa Cinema Yurakucho (03-6268-0015), Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011). 

Harbin home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2024 CJ ENM Co., Ltd., Hive Media Corp.

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Media watch: Court lets government discriminate against sex workers because of feelings

Posted on June 28, 2025 by philipbrasor
Mitsuko Miyagawa

On June 16 the first petty bench of the Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit brought by a business in the Kansai region against the government for denying it COVID-19 cash grants, which were distributed to companies during the pandemic so that they wouldn’t go out of business and their workers could keep their jobs while maintaining a decent living. The plaintiff is a “delivery health” company, which dispatches workers, invariably women, to places designated by clients in order to provide some kind of sexual gratification that does not involve penetration, since that would qualify as prostitution, which is illegal. 

In an interview with the legal affairs website Bengoshidotcom News, the plaintiff’s lawyer, Yusuke Taira, said the Supreme Court “ignored the importance of the COVID grants and clearly discriminated against the workers represented by the suit because they were in the sex trade.” And while the Supreme Court’s ruling had been expected, as discussed in the Mainichi Shimbun on May 27, the majority opinion on the case was not. Taira said the court used terminology that has never been used in such a case or when discussing the legality of sex-oriented services. In their opinion, the majority of justices stated that the nature of the work involved—essentially touching customers in accordance with the customers’ demands—automatically “did damage to the workers’ dignity.” 

Taira said this finding made no sense, and wondered how it could be used to justify a legal decision. The defendant, meaning the Japanese government, had never mentioned the workers’ “dignity.” Instead, it claimed that sex work “contradicts the sexual moral standards shared by the majority of citizens” and so it was “inappropriate” to support such businesses with public funds, without providing empirical proof of such a claim. As a matter of fact, Taira cited a survey used in one of the lower court trials that found the majority of respondents said it was OK to give COVID grants to sex workers. Nevertheless, the lower courts found the government’s exclusion reasonable and thus it did not qualify as discrimination. 

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Review: Memoir of a Snail

Posted on June 27, 2025 by philipbrasor

If Britain’s Aardman has become the studio that has done the most to preserve the art of stop-motion animation, Australia’s Adam Elliot has been the artist who’s advanced it further in terms of visual inventiveness and narrative rigor. Like Jan Švankmajer, Elliot is not afraid of being gross (his movies are often R-rated), but his claymation creations serve more conventional cinematic sentiments like love and courage and family cohesiveness, even if his family units themselves are unconventional. Memoir of a Snail features one that is classically pathetic: twins whose mother died giving birth to them only to be raised by a parapalegic alcoholic French father who dies young, thus condemning them to separation in distant foster homes. The title refers to the structure of the film, since it is narrated by the female half of the sibling pair, Grace (Sarah Snook), who was born with a harelip and from a young age inherited her dead mother’s admiration for land crustaceans, adopting their always forward-moving purposefulness as a means of warding off the despair that continually trespasses into her emotional landscape. 

This despair and the reactive “glass half-full” philosophy that rules Grace’s outlook isn’t presented in a gloomy fashion, however. Elliot has a knack for dark humor that matches his off-whack visual sense—lopsided bodies, squashed faces, and clutter with character. He’s also a master of contrasts. Whereas Grace is all sad-eyed hopefulness, her brother Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a dyed-in-the-wool cyno-pessimist with a thing for arson, though given his provenance and the neglect he suffers at the hands of his fundamentalist foster family, you give him not only the benefit of the doubt, but a good chunk of sympathy as he pledges to Grace through long-distance letters that they will eventually be reunited. Before that happens, however, Grace will experience a series of tragicomic misadventures before coming into contact with an iconoclastic old woman named Pinky (Jacki Weaver), who becomes not so much the parent she always longed for, but the friend she always needed to prove her worth as a human being. Pinky allows Grace to be kind by protecting her from the rank cruelty of the world. Elliot’s imagination runs wild with Pinky’s extravagant back story, which includes two dead husbands, a slew of weird jobs, and lots of recreational drugs. Pinky’s late-career vocation is taking care of old people because she herself is entering that phase of her life. But then Grace finds sexual love with a neighbor named Ken, who eventually turns into yet another disappointment and she returns to Pinky, who is showing the first stages of the dementia she always dreaded.

There is more pain to come, including news that Gordon has died in a fire, but Eliot maintains a light comic touch. Though reportedly based somewhat on the filmmaker’s own life, Memoir of a Snail is suffused with enough fantastic elements to qualify as more of a dream than a biography, and Elliot makes the connection with his own career complete in the end with Grace’s self-fulfillment as an artist. In fact, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Snail would have been a title better suited to the film’s transgressive humor, but Elliot would be too proud to pinch somebody else’s idea.

Now playing in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Chanter Hibiya (050-6868-5001), Human Trust Cinema Shibuya (03-5468-5551), Cinemart Shinjuku (03-5369-2831).

Memoir of a Snail home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2024 Arenamedia Pty Ltd., Filmfest Limited and Screen Australia

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Review: Ghostlight

Posted on June 26, 2025 by philipbrasor

It goes without saying that movies don’t have to be perfect to be emotionally effective, and sometimes filmmakers who trust their instincts make better moves that those who strive for something sublime. This small drama about a middle aged blue collar worker whose outlook is changed significantly after participating in a performance of Romeo & Juliet features a few plot points that are a bit too on-the-nose, but the writer-directors, Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson, who were responsible for the equally intelligent 2020 abortion dramedy Saint Frances, focus more on the dramatic contours of grief and self-expression to sell their story. 

It’s obvious from the beginning that Dan Mueller (Keith Kupferer), though materially comfortable in a lower middle class American way, is not happy, but it takes a while before O’Sullivan and Thompson reveal the source of his troubles. His teenage daughter, Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer), is acting out in increasingly aggressive ways, and his relationship with his wife, Sharon (Tara Mallen), seems fraught with tension. Dan and Sharon try to overcome their mutual anxiety by submerging themselves in daily routine, but it doesn’t seem to work. Then, one day, Dan, who supervises a team doing public works projects, stumbles upon a local theatrical troupe that is putting on a production of Romeo & Juliet. It’s difficult to say what it is about the project that piques his curiosity, and the filmmakers don’t force the issue. But the play’s producer-director, a small-time veteran of Broadway named Rita (Dolly De Leon), sees something in Dan that she wants to work with and convinces him to join. As he slowly gets into the production, and incomprehensibly snags the role of the teenage Romeo, the reasons for his despair are revealed, and they dovetail somewhat obviously with Shakespeare’s story. 

What makes Ghostlight work is how O’Sullivan and Thompson contrast the niceties of the rehearsals with Dan’s suffering as he and his family navigate a legal process that doesn’t seem to be doing anybody any good, though it was Dan who initiated it. Dan takes rightful pride in his interpretation of the part he has taken on, and there is absolutely no loss of poetic power when he and the other amateur actors speak their lines. Romeo & Juliet is a tragedy that Dan needs to understand, and it lifts him up in ways the filmmakers let the audience explore for themselves. In the end, not forcing the issue proves to be the best way to achieve the sublime.

Opens June 27 in Tokyo at Bunkamura Le Cinema Shibuya Miyashita (050-6875-5280).

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photo (c) 2024 Ghostlight LLC

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