Irresistibly fun and sweet and gawky, in a universal high school/teen-y button-pushing way.High school. An all-girl band loses their lead guitarist and singer to an injury three days before their school festival. Unable to decide on a replacement, the remaining band members agree to let fate decide in a "whoever walks by next" kind of way. And who does fate choose? The foreign exchange student, of course! Can these girls turn her into their lead singer and together learn three new songs in time for their performance? One last musical blast together before they leave their high school days behind?
Oh, it also all happens to be set in Japan, with dialogue mostly in Japanese (subtitled in English).
It may read as cheezy, but it's good cheese, authentic cheese. Thoughtful, heartfelt, and joyful cheese. There's a lot of great sweet and awkward adolescent moments throughout, and all so very naturally delivered. Beside and beyond the band, the girls have all got their own little things going on, of course, boys, old and new, nosiness, infighting, beef darts (amazingly, not a typo or bad translation! =), but it's nothing that some undeniably catchy Japanese punk rock can't solve!
The music, even in their worst practice sessions, is super fun. The girls deftly create their personalities within minutes of appearing on screen, and they're definite types, girls you knew in high school. Don't get to thinking it's bee-boppin giddy giggly froofery, though. It's more THUMBSUCKER or GHOST WORLD than MEAN GIRLS. The mood and atmosphere is generally low key, and the very typical conversation between friends easily moves from playful to serious or sentimental, but there's always room for a laugh. Everyone in the cast is excellent at expressions that speak volumes. It does feel very Jarmusch, even whimsical non-gangster Kitano, in that way.
Man, I feel like I'm all over the road trying to write this up. Bottom line: it's a super fun film held together by some great genuine performances and catchy tunes. Cheer up your day (it was miserable wet and cold out when I went slogging to catch this today)—go see this sweetly irresistible schoolgirl uniformed Japanese girl band-that-could story! Playing thru Thursday night at the Brattle!
Keep on rockin on~
* January 20. Terribly supercool LINDA LINDA LINDA tidbit I criminally neglected to mention above—the soundtrack/non-band performance music to the film is composed by James Iha of Smashing Pumpkins! It's frickin lovely, too. =)
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