A Quiet Thursday Night

I like going to see movies in Japan. It’s comforting to do something that is such a regular part of my routine back in the UK. I’m a member of the British Film Institute and will usually see at least one movie a week if I can, either at the National Film Theatre or the Soho Curzon (depending on how much money I have at the time). Since coming to Japan, my visits have become much less frequent. We have an arthouse cinema in Okayama which shows the occasional offbeat foreign film. Meanwhile, the larger cinema chains will show major US films, particularly the action/superhero ones. At the same time, we don’t get everything. Many of my friends in Okayama are annoyed that our prefecture will not be showing The Muppets movie. Having seen and enjoyed it, I think they’re right to be disappointed.

So last night I headed to the local shopping centre/mall with some friends to see The Descendants. Now I’m a great fan of the film Sideways, which is by the same director. I love Paul Giamatti, the California countryside looked beautiful, I felt great empathy with the characters and it was very funny indeed.

The Descendants has many of the same ingredients, a similar style and some strong performances. But it isn’t quite as good. At times it’s quite affecting as it shows people’s imperfections and a family dealing with the grief process. At times it’s also lightly funny in a small smile rather than David Cameron-Rebekka Brooks LOL TORIES=NUMBER 1!!! way. Great soundtrack too.

But it’s not really smart enough or funny enough to really make it for me. For a start, the plot is quite predictable, especially if you’ve seen any of Alexander Payne’s other movies. Then there’s the family dynamic which starts off chaotic but then has everything seemingly resolved a couple of scenes later. The older daughter appears to become a responsible adult over a time period of about three days.

As for George Clooney-as always he’s charming and competent. I didn’t believe in his character for a moment because he was, after all, George Clooney, but he did a decent job. I think they might have been better going with somebody less good-looking and maybe even less sympathetic. Jack Nicholson would have been great (Yeah-I know I’m not exactly sticking my neck out here as Jack Nicholson is almost always great), or even Bill Murray.

It reminded me very strongly of A Serious Man, one of the Coen Brothers’ greatest films and maybe the one that deals best with disappointment and family breakdown. Unfortunately, Clooney isn’t really in the same league as Michael Stuhlbarg, but nobody is, really. Clooney’s actually made a whole series of so-so films now. I really disliked Up In The Air and this is a much better movie, but that’s not a fair comparison maybe. All in all, one for a Sunday night on DVD maybe. But hey, we have limited opportunities here and it was fun to invade the multiplex and practice Japanese with the subtitles.

Afterwards we wandered to Ario Mall for churros and were then predictably chucked out by the security guard. So we sat outside the mall, feeling a bit like teenagers. I enjoyed that.