Fine, Totally Fine

BDirected by Yosuke Fujita

First time director Yosuke Fujita's airy comedy "Fine, Totally Fine" is an amusing, off kilter look at a group of listless 20-somethings who both fall for the same girl.

Teuro and Hisanobu are two friends attempting to navigate the choppy waters of their twenties (that's where the similarities between Hisanobu, Teuro and I end) Hisanobu is trying to get his career as a hospital maintenance administrator off the ground while Teuro is concerned with finding a way to make a buck off his true calling--scaring people with homemade, DIY contraptions he hopes to someday use in his own haunted house. Life is going along without much action for the boys until beautiful (and hopelessly clumsy) Akari is hired by Hisanobu who quickly becomes infatuated with her. Teuro, obviously not privy to any existing code of conduct between best friends, also falls head over heels for Hisanobu's crush. The boys fail to share any of this information with each other, leading to some dicey situations.

"Fine, Totally Fine" is amusing throughout though rarely hilarious. The understated humour lends itself poorly to any moments of side splitting hilarity but the upside of such a brand of humour is that the laughs come more often and the pace of the film is generally quite good. The supporting cast, most of whom are relative unknowns to Western audiences, are for the most part excellent, especially Arakawa YosiYosi whose full moon face, perpetually plastered with the blankest of gazes, is itself a source of almost constant amusement. In the end, though, none of the characters are that well developed, a shortcoming likely due to Fujita's choice to focus on a number of peripheral characters who, although funny in their own right, prevent the film's three core characters from being adequately fleshed out. "Fine, Totally Fine" is also bogged down by a number of questionable detours such as Teuro's father's journey of spiritual awakening following a bout of depression, which add little to the overall narrative. That said, criticizing a lighthearted comedy for its lack of narrative structure is a bit of a cheap shot. There's no point in demanding that a film which labels itself rather honestly as a paper thin comedy be crucified for its lack of depth, although I truly feel that in the case of "Fine, Totally Fine" greater focus on developing Teuro, Hisanobu and Akari would have done nothing but benefit the film's overall impact.