Tokyo is such a densely populated city that it seems like a fair number of the movies I’ve seen set there have this a subtext. Here four roommates, two of each sex, share an apartment, each coming and going and living the haphazard lives of twentysomethings. The movie is divided into segment focusing on each roommate: one who’s fallen for his best friend’s girlfriend; one who spends her time hanging out, waiting for her movie-star boyfriend’s occasional calls and hatching plans to uncover the call-girl ring that might be operating next door; one who’s kind of a wild girl; and one, the oldest at 28, who seems more stable than the others and is the only one shown working. And there’s a fifth roommate, a skinny homeless kid who happily shows up one morning to the confusion of the others. In the course of the film, we find out a little about each character, and they learn a little about each other. If there is a unifying theme, it’s how well do we know the people we know? (At one point, a couple of the roommates speculate on whether the newcomer might be the local serial killer, but his crimes turn out to be more petty.) The film is intriguing, but probably aimless for some tastes. The ending is possibly shocking, open to interpretation, but kind of anticlimactic rather than satisfying. One woman I heard, walking out of the theater, put it more succinctly. “Bunch of looneys,” she said.
IMDB link
viewed at Ritz 5 [Philadelphia Film Festival] and reviewed 10/17/10
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