Soup Opera (2010)
Sakai plays Rui, a 35-year-old single woman forced to live alone after the aunt who raised her suddenly decides to get married and move out. Through an unexpected set of circumstances, she winds up becoming roommates with an aging ladies’ man named Tony and a timid younger man named Kosuke.
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Reviews
Awesome Movie
It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.
Blistering performances.
An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.
This was mostly a fun movie. Not profound, not "great", not something that will change your life. (not that many movies do)But it is whimsical, frequently funny, unpredictable, and only occasionally tedious. (The ending dream sequence goes on way too long)Rui (ridiculously rendered "Louie" by IMDb) is a 30-ish woman, not beautiful but nice enough, who never knew her father and lost her mother long ago, and has been brought up by her aunt. The aunt suddenly announces she is getting married and moving far, far away. Rui anticipates loneliness...she works in a library that seems to be frequented by exceptionally odd people, and has no-one who is likely to fill this new void in her world. But she's in for a surprise, and then another, and another....A nearby long-disused merry-go-round, half-engulfed in weeds, becomes a rustic stage for a piquant if improbable musical trio, interposed sporadically as if to remind us that this story is only tenuously related to the real world....I watched it in Japanese. I have no idea if a subbed version is available. I would give it 7/10 if they'd cut five minutes or more from the dream sequence at the end.As for the meaning of the aphorism in the title, well, watch the movie for an explanation that makes good sense.