Dance with Me

Shinobu Yaguchi's 2019 Japanese film follows Shizuka, an office worker hypnotised at an amusement park, who begins singing and dancing whenever she hears music. Unable to find the hypnotist, she sets out across Japan to look for him, which gives the film the shape of a road movie. Yaguchi's cinema is built on ordinary people managing something through ineptitude, and this film runs in the same vein. The musical numbers arrive deliberately in the wrong place at the wrong time: in a meeting room, on a bus, in a supermarket. The comedy is physical and well timed. Its limit is that some of the characters added along the road serve no function, and the final section runs long. Who it's for: viewers who like Japanese comedy and unconventional musicals. Who it's not for: anyone wanting a serious story, or made uncomfortable by comedy of embarrassment.