This Japanese film does not include the Beatles song, which really wouldn't fit the dramatic tenor. Instead, it's based on a Haruki Murakami short story by the same title. How a 40-pager plus bits of two others in the collection made the basis for a 179-minute feature is beyond me, but the latter was too esteemed for me to pass up.
In the late 2010s, middle-aged Yūsuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) doesn't want to act on stage ever again due to emotional issues regarding his late wife, Oto (Reika Kirishima). Nevertheless, his past as the star of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya gets him tapped to direct another production thereof. One condition of the arrangement is that he not drive himself, given his glaucoma. He reluctantly accepts young woman Misaki Watari (Tōko Miura) as his chauffeur and lets her hear him go over lines in his car with a recording of Oto. Young actor Kōji Takatsuki (Masaki Okada) is surprised when Yūsuke casts him as Vanya. Imagine his surprise if he'd known that Yūsuke caught him committing adultery with Oto.
No, it's not a revenge story by any stretch. Yūsuke actually believes that as unlikely a choice as Kōji is, he shows real promise for the part. And for all his doubts of this, Kōji extends friendly gestures in return. Perhaps Yūsuke has conflicting feelings about him just as he has about Oto.
More time is spent on Yūsuke connecting with Misaki. She remains quiet at first, perhaps out of professional obligation. After he opens up about his personal woes, she shares her own, which I'd say are worse, tho she keeps a more stoic face. I'm not sure how much he helps her cope, but she sure helps him.
I have not read or watched any version of Uncle Vanya, but the clips herein and the synopsis I browsed suggest that it's not far off from the Chekhov plays I do know. Chekhov has a way with complexity that leads to characters not doing what we'd expect but still being basically credible. I suspect at least a few parallels to Yūsuke's situation.
The other character of interest is Kōji's wife and play co-star, Lee Yoo-na (Park Yu-rim), who can hear but communicates by signing. This is a pretty ambitious production, with various languages spoken and multiple translations presented on a screen above the stage. Yoo-na's final monologue in the play somehow gets more tender when done by hand.
Perhaps the strangest element comes near the beginning: Oto thinks up stories during sex, tells them to Yūsuke line by line at the time, and relies entirely on him to remember them later. Whose mind works that way? How could such stories be marketable for a screenwriter? And don't they run the risk of ruining the mood in bed? Regardless, the quirk is intriguing enough to help explain Yūsuke's enduring love for Oto.
I'm not convinced that DMC had to be anywhere near three hours long. Still, it's neither exhausting nor boring for long. If you want a non-depressing drama off the beaten path, this isn't a bad choice.
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