Solanin

Meiko works at a company in Tokyo and does not like her job. Her boyfriend Taneda has played guitar since university and has a band but does nothing serious with it; he works part time at an advertising agency. One day she resigns. She brings him a proposal too: try the music properly. The band records a demo. Then something unexpected happens and Meiko has to go on alone. Takahiro Miki directs. Aoi Miyazaki plays Meiko and Kengo Kora plays Taneda. The source is Inio Asano's manga. The manga was taken in Japan as the book of a generation in its late twenties; the squeeze between work, hope and giving up was much discussed at the time. The idea is the acceptance of ordinariness. The narrative builds no success story; music stands here not as deliverance but as a question. Aoi Miyazaki learned the guitar for the film and the performance in the last section is real. Solanine is a substance found in potatoes; in the manga it is the name of a song and its being poisonous carries a meaning inside the narrative. The limit of the adaptation is time. The manga spreads over a long period and compressing it leaves some supporting characters without function. Who it is for: viewers who like Japanese youth drama and stories built on music. Who it is not for: the pace is slow, little happens, and the emotional pitch rises at the end.