In “Super Happy Forever”, a Japanese feature film, director Kohei Igarashi plays with your mind right off the bat with the film’s name. A cultish misnomer. A fantasy. The film is more a dive into unhappiness derived from wishful thinking. And temporally Igarashi plays with you but not me as I have the film down perfectly as you are about to read and realize me for the savvy critic I am. Are you gong to fall for that five-year gap stuff and her death?
The film starts, where it might well have ended if Igarashi wasn’t throwing red caps at your noggin. The quasi-schizophrenic Sano (Hiroshi Sano) and his friend Miyata (Yoshinori Yamamoto) are vacationing on the beautiful Izu Peninsula at a beachside resort hotel. In the hotel lobby they encounter frustrated perpetually giggly photographer Nagi (Nairu Yamamoto). Sano and Nagi make eye contact watching a hotel guest nodding off with her cell phone just about to hit the ground when she awakes grabbing it before it hits the floor. They introduce each other on a pleasure cruise off the coast, have lunch with Miyata and the three go clubbing.
Before entering the club Sano purchases a ratty red cap for Nagi a central part of the film.
After clubbing Nagi and Sano stop for instant noodles they consume on the sidewalk and it is clear they may have a deepening affinity for each other. Returning to the hotel on the same floor will either make a move toward further physical intimacy? Nope, agreeing instead to meet at 8:00 a.m. for breakfast. The breakfast never occurs and it is not entirely clear (love the mystery here) why except for an admission by Sano he feared Nagi no longer wanted him. No furtherance of a relationship.
Despondent Sano, once jolly, rapidly transforms into a moody regretful if not belligerent character searching for the symbol of his unrequited relationship with Nagi, the red cap. The relationship is dead and failing to recognize that Sano stubbornly searches for the red cap full of regret and dashed expectations. Nagi is little more than a legendary ghost on the pier. A wish of Sano escalated in his mind to mythical proportions. The five-year period is but a figment of his imagination increasing, at least logically, his misery.
If you are roaring with laughter at my interpretation smarty pants viewers answer me this question; Why would Sano wear the same t-shirt for 5 years? Gotcha!
And the Vietnamese chamber maid wearing the red cap. Sorry Sano…man were you deceived!
Of course, I am totally wrong but I had so much fun with the film. Hiroshi Sano plays a convincingly schizophrenic role as an enamoured chicken little then a miserable son of a bitch. The epitome of Super Miserable Most of The Time.
“Fun” is a weak word to be avoided by a literate film critic but I haven’t had as much fun with this film as I have had in a long time!
Catch the trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn_3H9K7fsY
In Canada opens in Montreal 13June2025.
RKS 2025 Film Rating 91/100.
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