I grew up with the trope of the nerdy-guy-who-gets-the-girl. It’s an illusion some boys like to hear. It makes them feel better that when a woman “comes to her senses,” she’ll pick the nerdy kid instead of the Neanderthal. This film gives that trope the finger. Unfortunately, instead of being honest, it replaces it with an even sillier trope where a designated nerdy loser attracts the passion of a girl who is way better than he is and he doesn’t really like her anyway. Well isn’t that special.
In most films, it’s not difficult to root for the nerd. It’s a nerd! Life has been cruel enough already without a movie audience piling on. Georama Boy, Panorama Girl challenges that notion by presenting us with a nerd who deserves to get his ass kicked … a lot. We meet Kenichi (Jin Suzuki) taking a test. IMHO, this is the key scene in the entire film even though it has nothing to do with romance. About halfway through the exam, Kenichi up and quits school. Just quits.
I’m telling you right now I would have been pretty pissed if some jackass made that kind of scene while I was trying to take a test.
Now my background has taught me to root for the rebel … ok, school ain’t for you? Gonna burn your bridges and give all your teachers the finger as you enter your new life as a cliché? Go for it! So what’s up? Is this about a girl? Travel? Miscellaneous rebellion? What’s the plan, Botan?
Oh. You have none. Well this is … disappointing. And not just a little disappointing. It’s “why did you make this film?” disappointing. Why have us root for a guy
with no direction? Oh, it’s pretty clear that Kenichi is a nerd! Shy, humble, no discernable physical talents, not exactly a looker … none of these things is necessarily a bad trait, but when you package it together with “high school dropout,” that’s a disaster. A nerd without a diploma is like an alligator without any teeth; whatchagonnado, log monster, strangle me?
It gets better. You see, there’s a girl, Haruku (Anna Yamada). And she is smitten with the boy … and yet he only has eyes for Mayumi (Misato Morita), who is 1) too old for Kenichi, 2) too hot for Kenichi, 3) either currently dating or a prostitute, neither of which a high school dropout with the muscle tone of a young Woody Allen is capable of handling. For the love of Sadaharu Oh, movie, will you stop following the boy and start following the girls?
I’m hoping that Georama Boy, Panorama Girl made a better graphic novel than film. It couldn’t have been that hard. I honestly think the problems are motivation and tone. It’s not that we dislike Kenichi or Haruku; it’s that we haven’t been given sufficient reason to like them (especially Kenichi). A film like this, however, requires us to like the leads because it’s not offering anything special by way of plot or dialogue or atmosphere. So when you set up a romance with a guy most audience members will want to stuff in a locker, it’s really difficult to get beyond that. For the sake of graphic novel enthusiasts, I pray it’s a poor adaptation from manga.
That dropout dweeb should be slapped
With that older woman, he’s rapt
Why root for that nerd?
This screenplay gets the bird
Sometimes you should opt for “don’t adapt”
Not Rated, 105 Minutes
Director: Natsuki Seta
Writer: Natsuki Seta
Genre: Dissatisfied face emoji
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: The most hopeless of hopeless romantics
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Anybody with a remainder of self worth
