Happy Hour (2015 film)

Happy Hour (ハッピーアワー, Happī Awā) is a 2015 Japanese drama film directed by Ryūsuke Hamaguchi.

Happy Hour
Poster
Directed byRyūsuke Hamaguchi
Written byRyūsuke Hamaguchi
Tadashi Nohara
Tomoyuki Takahashi
StarringSachie Tanaka
Hazuki Kikuchi
Maiko Mihara
Rira Kawamura
Release date
  • 12 December 2015 (2015-12-12) (Japan)
Running time
317 minutes
CountryJapan
LanguageJapanese

Plot

The film follows the lives and loves of four middle-class women in their thirties who are friends and who live in Kobe. When one reveals she is undergoing divorce proceedings, the others begin to rethink their relationships.

Cast
  • Sachie Tanaka, as Akari
  • Hazuki Kikuchi, as Sakurako
  • Maiko Mihara, as Fumi
  • Rira Kawamura, as Jun

Production

The film was first developed while Hamaguchi was an artist in residence at KIITO Design and Creative Center Kobe in 2013.[1] It came out of an improvisational acting workshop he held for non-professionals, with many of the film's performers having participated in the workshop.[2]

Release

The film had its world premiere at the 68th Locarno Festival on 14 August 2015.[3][4] It was released in Japan on 12 December 2015.[5]

Reception

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 100% based on 14 reviews, with a weighted average of 8.5/10.[6] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 87 out of 100, based on 4 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[7]

The four lead actresses shared the best actress award and the film earned a special mention for its script at the 2015 Locarno Film Festival.[8] The film was voted the third best Japanese film of 2015 in the Kinema Junpo poll of critics.[9] Upon its release in the United States, Richard Brody of The New Yorker wrote that "Hamaguchi is a genius of scene construction, turning the fierce poetry of painfully revealing and pugnaciously wounding dialogue into powerful drama that’s sustained by a seemingly spontaneous yet analytically precise visual architecture".[10] He selected the film as one of the 10 best of 2016,[11] and later as the best Japanese film of the 21st century.[12] Vadim Rizov also held the latter opinion, saying, "The logline is that it’s a drama about five Japanese women charting their friendship, using duration to build character depth, and that’s absolutely true, but there’s so much more".[12] Dan Sullivan in Film Comment stated, "Buoyed by four captivating performances from its unheralded actresses, Happy Hour is a fascinating, towering confection of contradictions".[2] Ben Konigsberg in The New York Times wrote that "If 'Happy Hour' doesn't quite deliver all it promises, that may only be because it promises quite a lot".[13]

Vadim Rizov also

The film was placed at number 85 on The A.V. Club's "100 Best Movies of the 2010s" list,[14] number 27 on Slant Magazine's "100 Best Films of the 2010s" list,[15] and number 94 on IndieWire's "100 Best Movies of the Decade" list.[16]

References
  1. "濱口竜介監督作品『ハッピーアワー』ロカルノ国際映画祭にて最優秀女優賞受賞／脚本スペシャルメンション授与 KIITO". KIITO (in Japanese). Retrieved 4 March 2018.
  2. Sullivan, Dan. "Review: Happy Hour, Ryusuke Hamaguchi". Film Comment. Retrieved 4 March 2018.
  3. "Photo gallery 2015". Locarno Festival. Retrieved 25 January 2020.
  4. "Nineteen Movies Go Hunting a Pardo". Locarno Festival. 15 July 2015. Retrieved 25 January 2020.
  5. "濱口竜介監督「ハッピーアワー」、クラウドファンディング活用し完成". Eiga.com (in Japanese). 16 December 2015. Retrieved 25 January 2020.
  6. "Happy Hour (Happî awâ) (2015)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
  7. "Happy Hour". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 25 January 2020.
  8. Office, Press. "Palmarès 2015". pardo.ch. Retrieved 4 March 2018.
  9. "キネマ旬報 ベスト・テン". Kinenote. Kinema Junpo. Retrieved 4 March 2018.
  10. Brody, Richard (24 August 2016). "A Five-Hour Japanese Film Captures the Agonizing Intimacies of Daily Life". The New Yorker. Retrieved 4 March 2018.
  11. Brody, Richard (9 December 2016). "The Best Movies of 2016". The New Yorker. Retrieved 4 March 2018.
  12. Ehrlich, David (2018-03-26). "The Best Japanese Films of the 21st Century — IndieWire Critics Survey". IndieWire. Retrieved 2021-01-10.
  13. Kenigsberg, Ben (23 August 2016). "Review: In 'Happy Hour,' the Effects of One Divorce on Four Women". The New York Times. Retrieved 4 March 2018.
  14. "The 100 best movies of the 2010s". The A.V. Club. 18 November 2019. Retrieved 25 January 2020.
  15. "The 100 Best Films of the 2010s (page 8 of 10)". Slant Magazine. 27 December 2019. Retrieved 25 January 2020.
  16. "The 100 Best Movies of the Decade: "Happy Hour" (Hamaguchi Ryūsuke, 2015)". IndieWire. 22 July 2019. Retrieved 25 January 2020.
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