A Short Distance Relationship

It's actually a terrible film. It sets up certain expectations right at the beginning, but then demolishes them with awkwardness and scenes you don't want to watch (I admit I had to speed things up a bit towards the end because I just couldn't take it anymore). Yamapi just proved my "impression" here – he's not good at acting anymore, or he just picks roles so stupid that he can't play them. Komatsu Nana and Yamamoto Mizuki were a delight, they're clever girls. Nothing above average, but at least they were entertaining. The story is really shallow, and since the movie is almost two hours long, it was impossible to endure. At times, it seemed like the filmmakers were trying to make it seem more "arty" (like longer shots of the landscape with just the two of them, etc.), but it didn't work and instead felt rather awkward. If I were one of the actors and went to the premiere, I'd probably have collapsed in shame. But otherwise it was quite good, there was a good scene here and there. On the bright side, I didn't find the characters (any of them) exceptionally unbearable; on the contrary, surprisingly for such a genre, they were all quite tolerable (which is basically why I'm giving it a whole star :-D). Why see the film? Perhaps only if you are charmed by Yamapi's bad acting, otherwise a waste of time. (04/18/2015)