I am reminded of a time in 5th grade in which the class stooge grabbed hold of a Magic-8 ball and ran around repeatedly asking it: “Is my sister radioactive?” a question of similar merit as: “Will I Be Single Forever?” You know what, dude? In the age we live in … if all you want is to be married, I’m quite certain you can find someone who will take you up on that … provided you have no lower limit on candidates.0
And that’s the point of Will I Be Single Forever?, a semi-deep exploration of relationship issues focused on four women: non-fiction writer Mami (Minami Tanaka), her neighbor Yukino (Miwako Ichikawa), party girl Miho (Sayuri Matsumura), and actual housewife Ayaka (Eri Tokunaga). Each of them is in relationship Hell, but at a different level.
Mami wrote a playbook for the single women ten years ago, but now is having second thoughts. Her desire to be accompanied at age 36 seems to be overcoming her good sense.
Yukino keeps being reminded of why she’s single even though she doesn’t want to be; her prospective suitors show off their flaws again and again and again.
Miho is a self-proclaimed “Sugar Daddy Girl.” To date, she has made a career out of being cute, which is nifty work if you can get it. While promising nothing sexually, she shows up on command to boost egos and erections. I don’t doubt that one can make a decent living doing such, but I imagine it comes with hazards and has a limited shelf life.
Ayaka has a baby, and the baby’s father seems like a decent guy – he LOVES playing with the baby- until responsibility shows up. Then the baby is all Ayaka’s. Daddy “allowed” Ayaka an afternoon at her college reunion – so long as she took the baby with her.
Will this quartet ever find happiness … and which one is the Miranda?
Part of the problem with this film is that on the one hand, the emotions of the women are genuine and heartfelt, and on the other hand, the men in the film are all self-centered douchebags. With the exception of Mami’s gay uncle, every man in the film assumes the woman nearest him will follow his instructions obediently and immediately. Are all Japanese men like this? That’s a helluva statement to make.
The most frustrating story is Mami’s. 26-year old Mami wrote a book concluding that the worst thing is tying yourself to a man just for the sake of companionship. Ten years later, however, she finds herself feeling exactly the opposite as she is about to get engaged to a man five years her 
chronological junior and twenty years her emotional junior.
Of course, while this is the spoken tragedy in Mami’s life, the film dances around unspoken tragedy: our heroine hasn’t gotten smarter or wiser in the past ten years. I wish I could say that was unique, but the condition of becoming stupider as you age is sadly common – hell, it’s the defining characteristic of the GOP—lemme put it this way, when you get to the stage of life where you are not only voting for Trump but actively pushing him back into public office, you are stupider than you used to be. No question.
Will I Be Single Forever? played kinda like “Sex and the City” without the sex … or the humor … and the entire quartet is perpetually depressed. I could take this as a dramatic interpretation of dating in the computer age, but I was really put off by the cornucopia of duds with a Y chromosome. Heartfelt as this film is, I can’t really recommend it to anyone other than man-haters.
There once was a feminist named Mami
Who said, “I wouldn’t date if you pay me”
Yet after some years
She gave into fears
And a douche who put the “cock” in cockamamie
Not Rated, 94 Minutes
Director: Momoko Fukuda
Writer: Fumi Tsubota
Genre: All the single ladies ♫
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Man-haters
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Misogynists
