Oboreru naifu (2016) Reviews

• One strange brew

  sitenoise2017-08-30

  Basically a story we've seen from Japan a thousand times: Pretty girl transfer student from Tokyo to Hicksville falls for the brooding bad boy in class. It treats this middle school romance as if it were a little more mature than it is. What sets it apart are some of the directorial choices in editing and sound. There are some over-the-top drama moments that would kill the film if they weren't normalized by the weirdness of the overall. Almost every scene in the film is accompanied by a different piece of music. Some good, some not so good, but they all act strongly, not in the background, in shaping the emotion of the scene. And the director uses the emotion, or intensity, of the music to shape her film editing. It's not subtle, and I don't think I've seen anything like it before--at least to the extent that the whole film follows this pattern, scene after scene. *Drowning Love* doesn't seem to care much about being a film as much as being a Live Action adaptation of a manga (which I haven't read). The director (I learned after the fact and it made perfect sense) is a 20-something young woman. It's like "Hey! One of us actually did this instead of some pervy old man!" and may explain some of the music video/video game aspects of the presentation. There's one big problem with it. Well, two. The first is: it doesn't really make sense. The second is: it starts off as a typical teen romance (shojo, I think they're called), then an attempted/aborted rape happens which kicks up the intensity--until it gets lost. And that's the problem. This middle school girl almost gets raped, and two minutes later in the film it's forgotten or downplayed by everyone until the end where it's brought back up for the finale. There's also a "sensitive boy" friend who gets tossed off the film after doing his little duty, and the adults in the film are just place holders who look out of place in the film--basically the way they must look to most middle school kids. Kudos for that. Nana Komatsu of *World of Kanako* fame stars. She's got a certain set of chops. Some fancy boy idol, who dyed his hair blond for the role, plays broody boy. They have chemistry, and I enjoyed Nana's complexity in dealing with broody boy. He treats her like a dog and she's determined to get to a place where he will be a whimpering puppy. And tells him as much. I enjoy the way the Japanese use middle school students to act out a Doomed Lovers play. You look at the players--they're young, there's no sex. They seem innocent, but are given dialog that betrays a wisdom and experience beyond their years. Not recommending it to anyone who isn't already interested in these kinds of movies. But this one is a little different and could offer something of interest because of the out-of-the-box way it's constructed. I think the ending is supposed to be big and meaningful but it didn't make any sense to me. It's not a film that meanders around and offers a emotional payoff at the end. It just spirals off.

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• A Must Watch Young Love Story

  gekaiy14082018-06-07

  This is like the representative of being young and dumbly in love. There is the kind of feeling in which they are deeply love each other but just aren't meant to be together. The movie will be pretty confusing, but you need to remember that the characters are teenagers. Aren't we going round and round and running a little bit from the one that we like?

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• young and beautiful

  k-991482017-08-02

  I had searched for this movie and then decided to watch it just for Masaki Suda and killing time.To be honest ,I did not have so much expectations of it but that I have been watching it changed my mind and caught me by BIG surprise.This is a romance movie where distinguishes itself from others are its full-blown and artistic narrative structure, most appropriate actors selected,young and most beautiful love story.I really love this movie!

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• Good enough

  pennyelenabooks2017-06-26

  Drowning Love is an okay movie, with an intense love story which was ruined by the odd directing techniques. First of all, the story was confusing a bit, though you get the main idea in the end and you can follow it for a while, so the messed up story line wasn't my main problem. The thing that ruined the movie for me was the way it was directed. Sequences were cut off (especially one that had a loud, happy music and then, suddenly, it was cut off), the camera was either too far away, either too close, in some scenes you could hear the actors talking but you could only see the waves, in others you had only Nana just laying down (maybe the director was in love with her...) like it was a photo shoot or something etc etc. Anyway, the main idea was that the director was all over the place, especially with holding long scenes for too long and with other scenes where you could only hear the actors breathing. Finally, the constant running around, chasing each other, was a bit odd, but you can overlook that compared to the bad directing. Thankfully, the performances were outstanding, and the love story had something in it to make you continue watching this film, probably because the couple had chemistry. So, 4 out of 10.

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• Interesting movie about young love

  baharuka2018-09-02

  You chase a love object while they run away for their own reasons, you get exhausted, then you chase some more in despair, questioning if you're masochistic. I think it's a situation a lot of people can relate to, especially about their teens and early twenties, and this movie is the place to revisit the feeling. The main character talks at some point about thinking you can get everything when you're around fifteen and how you need something or someone to rock your world, if I didn't get the Japanese wrong, and it's all relatable. There are two unlikeable main characters: The teen fashion model turned small town schoolgirl who needs action and the troubled, cocky local boy with bleached hair. The characters are interesting but you don't like them, which I think was intended. The story takes place in a town of great nature. A lot of scenes involve the sea and the forest and the characters interact with the nature while they try to capture each other, which I liked. Paired with the catchy soundtrack and the partly wordless communication between the leads, the movie does give a unique feeling. The second part revolves around an unfortunate thing that happens to the girl and how the boy reacts to it, and the movie has been criticized for handling how the adult characters react to that event, or the lack of their reaction, which I agree. However, this is a manga adaptation and that might have stemmed from the manga, not sure. Overall, an interesting watch from Japan.

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