Aside from a bad beginning and bad ending, this movie was OK, right? Sure. Sure it was. Don’t be distracted by silly things like “convention” and “storytelling;” the middle part of this film is almost adorable if completely understated.
You are supposed to build to the big change. That way, we can see the changes in our heroine. It’s really not that difficult when you think about it. Show us how Fumi (Satomi Kobayashi) lives alone, drinks too much, rues, regrets, and self-sabotages. We have to establish who she is before we can see who she becomes; that’s not even story-telling, necessarily, that’s just common sense. Instead, Tsuyukusa barely got Fumi out of her AA gathering before pelting her with the magical meteorite.
So ten minutes in all we know about this woman is she’s a recovering alcoholic and her car got hit by a meteor. Is this a superhero origin?
No. This is actually a tale about damaged people and middle-aged romance. It’s kinda sweet when it’s allowed to be. Fumi lives alone and works a dead-end factory job. She eats lunch with two co-workers who double as her besties, and she hangs out a lot with one of their children, a little boy with an astronomy fetish. Since this is a movie, we can accept the relationship between the -clearly- childless woman and her friend’s child … but there has to be some backstory, right?
The meteorite pelting Fumi’s car is supposed to be a cataclysmic, life-changing event, but since we didn’t really know Fumi before, it’s very difficult to know what’s changing. But it looks like the romance-challenged Fumi could possibly open her heart again, for there’s that leaf-playing mall cop guy, Goro (Yutaka Matsushige).
After a week of watching a cringefest of narcissistic Japanese men on film, Goro was quite a relief. The fiftysomething (?) sixtysomehting (?) loner seems not at all interested in ordering people
around or reflexively assuming random women will address his every whim. No, the semi-old guy just directs traffic in the day and then finds a goof leaf to play. The Tsuyukusa is an Asiatic dayflower that yields potentially musical leaves. So, hey, title! Now, is Goro open to love? It seems like he has a history, too.
Tsuyukusa is the kind of film you need to walk in on and walk out of because both the beginning and end of the film are so weak. In the middle, I did find the film charming. I liked Fumi and I liked Goro even despite themselves. At its best, Tsuyukusa becomes a quiet romance where hurt people find smiles … which is sometimes the best kind of film. At its worst, the film never figured out what it wanted to be, a feeling illuminated by the meteorite gimmick, and the inexplicable bookends. I am guessing middle-aged Japanese folks will give kinder reviews and I don’t have a problem with that. The middle of the film was decidedly sweet if completely uneventful … unless, of course, an old dude playing a plant floats your boat. The middle hour is a nice watch if you have absolutely no better way to spend your time.
A plant-flautist expressed though greens
And a neighbor explained his means:
“When talking vegetation”
She said with hesitation
“His usual instrument is beans”
Not Rated, 95 Minutes
Director: Hideyuki Hirayama
Writer: Hideyuki Hirayama
Genre: Old people in love, sorta
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Middle-aged romantics
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People who respect editors
