MIFF NOTES: Happy Hour (2015, Dir. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi)

There's a lot you can say about love, friendship and the difficult to navigate space between us in five hours. You can pontificate yourself or you can settle into a groove and let your characters do it for you. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi opts for the latter and with Rira Kawamura, Hazuki Kikuchi, Tsugumi Kugai and Maiko Mihara (not to mention a whole raft of excellent support) he's well served.

There are a lot of narrative threads to cover across Happy Hour's five but the general throb comes from the embattled relationships of the four leads (with their partners and with each other). Divorce proceedings, family scuffles and general disconnection propel the drama.

Nothing's rushed. Nor is anything blown out of proportion. Hamaguchi's stays grounded. He doesn't go epic. He just slowly builds her examination of love in modern Japan into a bulldozer of truth. Sad, happy, meaningful, flirtatious, blunt-talked, unexpected truth.

It's loose at times and tight in others. That is the luxury of a such a lengthy text. But nothing feels particularly wasted. Even the longest tracts (a half hour given over to a bizarre communication workshop, and a twenty minute short story reading) pull their weight in the long run.

I guess the best praise that can be laid at Hamaguchi's feet is that his film moves, perhaps not to tears but well beyond most.

And that it didn't feel that long.

★★★☆

Trailer:

Happy Hour screened as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival 2016.

You can check out other films from the festival here.