左様なら今晩は 「Sayonara Konbanwa」
Release Date: November 11th, 2022
Duration: 98 mins.
Director: Natsuki Takahashi
Writer: Natsuki Takahashi, Mayu Akiyama (Script), Chugaku Yamamoto (Original Story),
Starring: Shiori Kubo, Riku Hagiwara, Rina Ono, Riko Nagase, Hiroko Nakajima, Shohei Uno,
Starring Shiori Kubo, a member of the idol group Nogizaka46, and rising actor Riku Hagiwara, A Girl in My Room is an adaptation of a manga by Chugaku Yamamoto. It offers a cute supernatural romance in a pleasant setting and, while tinged with some poignancy, it is rather undemanding and should have wide appeal while not offending fans of either actor.
A Girl in My Room is all about Aisuke (Shiori Kubo), a ghost who haunts the apartment of Yohei (Riku Hagiwara), an emotionally clumsy office worker who has recently broken up with his girlfriend. An odd-couple cohabitation begins with much of the film fleshing out the rules between the two housemates and seeing Aisuke’s supernatural antics impinge upon Yohei’s reality. She becomes more corporeal the more their attachment to each other grows and it isn’t long before his office colleagues take notice and interfere.
A plot eventually emerges as the two try to figure out what is keeping Aisuke tied to the apartment and when she reveals that she has never experienced love we can all guess where this is going. Soon Yohei begins to feel comfortable spending time with Aisuke just as the two figure out how to send her to the other side.
More cute than scary, the film feels like a star vehicle for its leads, particularly Kubo. While she plays the titular ghost in the typical guise of a long-haired white-dressed yurei, it is not of the vengeful sort with a baleful look and distorted movements but with a bright and precocious personality, sunny smile and a penchant for mischievous behaviour. It is enjoyable enough to experience and the film clearly uses the clean-cut look and personality of the idol to convey her innocence while using the same qualities to buttress the story from any deeper emotional or philosophical angles that are brought up in a romance between the living and the dead.
If other films made much of the philosophical and emotional/physical violence that the living have in their encounters with the dead – for example, Pulse (2001) had ghosts revealing the void of loneliness inside people and making them vanish in a puff of despair while Seance (2001) was all about exposing economic anxiety and a crumbling marriage – the supernatural is used here for lightweight comedy and a bittersweet ending where death acts as the ultimate barrier between two characters – with added childlike chemistry – to keep the story clean.
As Kubo’s foil, Hagiwara is a rather milquetoast protagonist who remains fairly friendly but flat throughout most of the film. His character shows no growth from start to finish.
We see his first relationship fall apart due to his kind but thoughtless and superficial nature and that same nature guides him to accept the ghostly Aisuke rather than fear her and to treat her as a fun time rather than taking her mission to understand love more seriously and help her ascend to a better place.
He is inconsiderate and ultimately selfish.
His behaviour and kindness are rather shallow and Aisuke warns him in a moment when the subtext becomes text, “Kindness is more sinful than you think it is.” That line echoes one spoken in Ten Dark Women (1961) and Yohei almost shares the same selfish superficiality as the lead male character in that film.
Despite the supernatural setup, there is little that is eerie or creepy about the atmosphere. Poltergeist shenanigans, complete with flickering lights, moving objects, and spooky sounds, are played for laughs while the overall tone is gentle – maybe a tad melancholy.
A Girl in My Room was shot in Onomichi – Nobuhiko Obayashi’s stomping ground – and it has a warm and vivid atmosphere in the moments shot in exterior locations, many of which take place at sunsets. Mostly located in the downtown areas, the views from Yohei’s apartment balcony, where you can see the city is ringed by mountains, are impressive as is a shot of the huge bridge that spans the bay and the shotengai near the train station. However, some of the best views come from the mountain behind the train station – along which is where the shrine in Obayashi’s supernatural drama Tenkousei is located and it feels like a missed opportunity that more wasn’t made of it.
That written, the film is a solid drama that uses its milieu and supernatural aspects well to convey the most basic emotion of love, from Aisuke’s innocent emotion to the cloudier one shown by Yohei. Adding to the film is a great supporting cast, including veteran actor Shohei Uno and another rising star, Rina Ono (POP!, On the Edge of their Seats).
A Girl in My Room plays as part of the Japanese Film Festival Plus streaming season. You can watch it for free.