Yosuke Fujita	...	(Director)
Yosuke Fujita	...	(Writer)
YosiYosi Arakawa	...	Teuro Tohyama
Yoshino Kimura	...	Akari Kinoshita
Yoshinori Okada	...	Hisanobu Komori
Yûka Arai	...
Noriko Eguchi	...	Umezawa
Takao Handa	...
Tsuyoshi Honma	...
Shima Ise	...	Tomoko
Keizô Kani'e	...	Eitaro
Kitarô	...	Kurita
Seminosuke Murasugi	...
Toshie Negishi	...	Toyohara
Ichirô Ogura	...	Kotaro
Kayoko Shiraishi	...
Naoki Tanaka	...	Yuhara
Yoshihiro Ikeuchi	...	Cinematographer

Comments: This is a subtle, almost surreal comedy that wanders along at a slow pace, punctuated with bits of low-brow humor to keep it alive. It's also an odd little romance and a root-for-the-losers character drama, but there's never any high drama, as the film never gets out of lazy Sunday afternoon mode. The comedy and romance are spices in the mix of everyday people turning thirty, going nowhere fast, who end up going from not so good to not so bad after all. When the humor is subtle or sad it's great, but not so good when it resorts to the juvenile, like when a booger flies across the room and lands in someone's eye. Comedy is tough and everyone has a style that suits them. I could have done without the more broad-based physical bits but they do serve a purpose as little alarms for those who don't appreciate two hours of deadpan, no matter how funny it is. The director demonstrates a good amount of skill in using editing for comic timing, and he was wise to cast YosiYosi Arakawa as the guy to do the heavy lifting when it comes to the “Life’s more fun when you’re an idiot” bits.

I recommend this film to those who like slow comedies, but also to those who like whatever you call these uplifting films about everyday people who don't become rock stars or win the olympics but just get along and find happiness in everyday life. I love the way the film ends and anti-resolves a love triangle we weren't sure was going to turn out to be much of a plot point. I wanted to reach through my screen and hug the crap out of Yoshino Kimura. Her performance really surprised me. What a pleasure to see her do comedy, albeit of the low-key and clumsy kind.

And even though her part is very small, any film with Noriko Eguchi gets points just for having her.

★★★

Summary: “Life’s more fun when you’re an idiot,” says one of the characters in FINE, TOTALLY FINE and this movie is Exhibit A in the case against brains. Set in the dusty margins of Tokyo, FTF is a surreal comedy that’s a spiritual successor to previous festival hits like THE TASTE OF TEA, and it charts a lazy love triangle between the world’s clumsiest woman, Akari (Kimura Yoshino of Cannes hit BLINDNESS and SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO), who can’t even open a box of Kleenex without setting off destructive shock waves, a tamped-down hospital administrator Hisanobu (Okada Yoshinori) and his brother, Teruo (Yoshiyoshi Arakawa), a clueless part-time park keeper who is so unconcerned with the world around him that he doesn’t even realize he’s working part-time (“Why do you think you have so much free time?” a co-worker asks). Teruo is obsessed with building the world’s greatest haunted house, one that will terrify grown-ups but he’d rather spend his time talking about it than doing any actual work. It’s a star-making performance by Arakawa who has appeared in dozens of Japanese films playing everything from a cloud of flying sperm to Vinnie Jones’ translator, and who can get a laugh from something as simple as typing on his computer. Gormless and weird, his Super! Ultra! Deluxe! deadpan is this movie’s stylistic touchstone. First time director, Yosuke Fujita, was a hospital janitor for eight years before making FINE, TOTALLY FINE and this movie is full of characters who are all turning 30 and going nowhere fast, and what stands between them and true happiness are the exact same things that ruin all of our lives: the magic marker that’s going dry just when you really need it most, a disappointing corndog or even that horrible person who won’t let you gracefully escape their boring company before three o’clock in the morning. This is a movie made by someone who is cautious about strong emotions and who treats them with a hushed respect. There isn’t a big moment of emotional catharsis here, instead the closest these characters come to nirvana is when they’re all sitting quietly together, listening to the rain. Life can be an unfair string of humiliating indignities, but sometimes it gives you these moments where you can’t possibly imagine wanting anything more. (subwaycinema)