FANTASIA23 REVIEW: Ribâ, nagarenaide yo [River] [2023]

Rating: PG | Runtime: 86 minutes
Release Date: June 23rd, 2023 (Japan) / January 10th, 2024 (USA)
Studio: Tollywood / Cineverse Entertainment
Director(s): Junta Yamaguchi
Writer(s): Makoto Ueda

The last departure of the day has driven away, leaving the employees of Kibune, Kyoto’s Japanese Inn “Fujiya” with a break before that evening’s new arrivals. Two guests (Gôta Ishida’s Kusumi and Masashi Suwa’s Nomiya) start enjoying a meal. Another hits the hot baths (Haruki Nakagawa’s agent Sugiyama) while his novelist Obata (Yoshimasa Kondô) anxiously attempts to shake writer’s block. Taku (Yûki Torigoe), the establishment’s youngest chef, naps while his seniors (Kohei Morooka’s Morioka and Yoshifumi Sakai’s Eiji) prepare dinner. And Mikoto (Riko Fujitani), Kohachi (Munenori Nagano), and Chino (Saori) continue their shifts.

Unfortunately, they all also suddenly find themselves back where they were two minutes prior without warning or explanation. Just chaos. Because chaos is what occurs when a sprawling group of people find themselves stuck in an unexplainable temporal phenomenon. Mikoto and her coworkers catch on quickly because they’re forced to redo menial tasks that render the rewind indisputable. Kusumi and Nomiya need a bit more handholding since the only change they’re seeing right away is the fact the rice they just ate returned to their bowls.

Director Junta Yamaguchi and screenwriter Makoto Ueda (who were also behind the equally ingenious time-travel film Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes with most of the same cast as part of the Europe Kikaku collective), meticulously go room to room by way of Mikoto’s vantage point as lead to lay the groundwork for their latest River. She becomes the focal point as every two-minute segment’s fade to black reopens with her standing by the water before turning around to help put out whatever fire has inevitably erupted since.

First she and Kohachi realize what’s happening. Then they fill in Chino and their boss Shiraki (Masahiro Kuroki). From there it’s Kusumi and Nomiya. Then Obata (who is simultaneously overjoyed at the prospect of ignoring his deadline and curious about the experiences this consequence-free purgatory affords his imagination); Sugiyama (half-naked and desperate to escape the sauna), and Taku (finally waking to the fact the same song has been repeating itself over and over).

Add characters who must figure things out themselves (Eiji is a science major who takes it upon himself to discover the time loop’s source and return to normalcy; Kazunari Tosa’s hunter; and Shiori Kubo’s outsider stranded as a result of her vehicle having a frozen engine) and events can’t help spiraling out of control. All the extra time causes everyone to say things they might not normally say—clearing the air and confusing it at the same time. Suddenly they begin to wonder if they are the cause. Idle wishes and prayers to the Gods for love, inspiration, and salvation sharing a common solution: more time.

While the journey doesn’t utilize a single-take device like Beyond, its frenetic pace and potential for extreme emotions (the kind that conjure laughter as much as fear once things reach the point of suicidal thoughts—a time loop staple) demands a similar level of investment that you’ll be more than willing to provide due to its infectious sense of entertainment. The filmmakers know exactly when to pivot from exposition to dramatics to climactic puzzle-solving, never letting us get tired by one aspect or the other.

We want to learn about what’s happening alongside these characters while watching how they unravel in response to the ordeal. We want to embrace Mikoto’s unbridled excitement during a wild yet heartfelt second act that gives her control of the narrative to deliver a necessary dream while igniting a nightmare. And we do want there to be a way out regardless of whether it comes as a byproduct of that which we already know or a completely new development in the eleventh hour.

When you have a stable of eccentric characters willing to feed into the genre’s stereotypical clichés so Mikoto can travel her own path without them distracting from her own personal progression, it’s easy to get lost in the moment so her highs and lows hit with maximum potency. And yet we still care about the others since the changing world (snow appears and disappears depending on which “world line” the latest reset landed upon) brings their desires into clearer focus too.

We could all use a breather to escape our own heads and realize nothing is quite as dire as it may initially seem.