This is the story of a group of female friends and their romantic relationships and work lives. The word happy is in the title, but this is not a happy film, and it goes on for over 5 hours. Each of the main characters is struggling with relationship and work issues, and things grow progressively more dramatic as the story goes on. Jun is trying to get away from her obsessive husband, who refuses to let her leave him, and in Japan a husband has some legal rights in this area. Fumi has to deal with what might be a romantic rival to her husband, a thoughtful writer. Sakurako lives with her husband, son, and mother-in-law in what appears to be a loveless home. And Akari, the tough one of the group, is lonely and emotionally isolated.
There is a lot of loneliness in this film, and it seems like an indictment of Japanese marriages, portraying them as cold and heartless arrangements that are unfulfilling for all concerned. It reminded me of the films of Eric Rohmer, in the way it seriously probed its characters' relationships and emotions. There are long, puzzling sequences, like the odd workshop that takes place near the beginning. It was cool to see Hamaguchi breaking all the rules of mainstream filmmaking by having his characters talk at length about their feelings, and behave in realistic, undramatic ways. This is a serious film that got me thinking about the characters and their lives.
There is a lot of loneliness in this film, and it seems like an indictment of Japanese marriages, portraying them as cold and heartless arrangements that are unfulfilling for all concerned. It reminded me of the films of Eric Rohmer, in the way it seriously probed its characters' relationships and emotions. There are long, puzzling sequences, like the odd workshop that takes place near the beginning. It was cool to see Hamaguchi breaking all the rules of mainstream filmmaking by having his characters talk at length about their feelings, and behave in realistic, undramatic ways. This is a serious film that got me thinking about the characters and their lives.