Review: Happily Ever After (Jigyaku no Uta)

Posted by Kevin Ouellette on May 29, 2009 4:10pm EDT (3 years ago)

Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Movie reviews

Based on a popular Yoshiie Gouda comic strip which was original serialized in Shukan Hoseki from 1985-1990, Yukihiko Tsutsumi’s Happily Ever After was generally well-received by Japanese audiences largely because it brings well-known imagery from the source material to life. Now Viz Pictures has released the film in North America, and even though some of the comedic aspects may get a bit lost in translation (don’t forget to skim through the cultural notes Viz provides), there’s enough universal humor packed into this one for just about anyone to enjoy.

Deeply affected by her mother’s death when she was still a small child, Yukie (Miki Nakatani) muddles through her miserable life seeking out happiness. “Just a bit” she keeps repeating to herself, but even the smallest joys seem to elude our clumsy protagonist. On the advice of her best (and only) friend, Kumamoto, Yukie seeks out happiness by leaving her small town and heading off to bustling Osaka as an awkward teen. We catch up with her years later, discovering that she’s now working at a noodle shop and has conformed to the life of a doting housewife—though she’s not actually married to her gruff boyfriend, Isao (Hiroshi Abe).

A former yakuza, Isao spends his days blowing Yukie’s hard-earned money on Pachinko (sort of a cross between pinball and slots). And when he actually does come into his own money, he usually spends it all on booze before getting himself into drunken brawls with yakuza types. Yukie tries to make the best of a bad situation by inventing housework for herself even though their nearly-empty apartment doesn’t exactly require much upkeep. No clothes left to iron? No problem—she’ll just iron the curtains, or her pocket money. She even manages to whip up full meals for Isao with the few ingredients they can actually afford. So how does he repay her selflessness? By getting enraged at the slightest annoyances and flipping the dinner table over as she looks on helplessly, of course.

The idea of flipping the table, or “chabudai gaeshi”, is a fairly common reference in Japanese pop culture, and gets acted out literally in everything from manga to comedy variety shows as a representative cliché of the old-fashioned domineering husband. Isao isn’t really meant to be “abusive” per se; he’s just a no-good lazy leech of a boyfriend who Yukie loves with all her heart no matter how many people tell her she could do better. Through a series of flashbacks we discover exactly how they became a couple and why she’s so utterly attached to this strange, stoic man with a comically tight perm.

Tsutsumi remains pretty loyal to the tone of the original manga, which is rife with repetitive gags and goofy characters that translate surprisingly well to live-action thanks to a great comic cast. Nakatani is typically known for playing characters that are beautiful and refined, yet while playing Yukie she’s anything but, throwing herself completely into the role of the utterly plain, put-upon girlfriend. Abe has the perfect stone-faced glare to pull off the role of Isao, and his brief foray into working life is one of the highlights of the movie: as it turns out, standing around looking intimidating doesn’t work out very well when you’re supposed to be directing traffic. Rounding out the cast are Kenichi Endo as Yukie’s obsessively-smitten boss and veteran actor Toshiyuki Nishida as her incorrigible-yet-lovable dad. This pair’s noodle shop subplot doesn’t really go very far, but does add a few gags worth chuckling at when things could have otherwise gotten a little too serious.

Given Nakatani’s involvement and a few similar themes, it would seem obvious to compare Happily Ever After to Tetsuya Nakashima’s Memories of Matsuko, but that wouldn’t really be fair to either film. While Memories of Matsuko was a fantastical journey through the life of its tragic protagonist, Happily Ever After is more of a light comedy with some melodrama mixed in to tie it all together—nothing too heavy-handed. Even the serious parts are presented in a tongue-in-cheek way, having fun with common dramatic clichés while still managing to infuse those scenes with realistic emotion. It’s a difficult line to walk, but this is a case where Tsutsumi’s natural penchant for infusing his film projects with elements of television sitcoms actually helps strike a happy balance between black comedy, slapstick, and drama that turns the traditional idea of a romantic comedy on its ear.

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