‘You Are the Film’ offers a multiverse on a microbudget
Movies set in multiverses are now a sci-fi staple, with 2022 multiple Oscar winner “Everything Everywhere All at Once” being the best recent example.
Most, however, are not a microbudget indie like “You Are the Film,” the directorial debut of Makoto Ueda, who is a scriptwriter and playwright, as well as the leader of the Europe Kikaku theater troupe.
Based on Ueda’s original script, the cunningly plotted and propulsively paced film unfolds in a real-life corner of Tokyo’s trendy Shimokitazawa neighborhood that is occupied by a used clothing store on the first floor and the Crescent Rock restaurant, Good Heavens pub and Tollywood Theater on the second.
The film has almost nothing in the way of special effects and a concept — with roots in the silent era (namely Buster Keaton’s 1924 “Sherlock Jr.”) — that is freshly reimagined to amusing and mind-bending effect.
Madoka (Marika Ito), a fledgling playwright who leads a four-person theater troupe, goes to see a film called “Sangenjaya Escape” at the Tollywood on the recommendation of the Good Heavens manager (Gota Ishida). The only one in the audience, she watches with growing irritation as the film’s male protagonist sits in an identical theater, stares at a screen and says nothing.
Meanwhile, Kazuma (Kai Inowaki), the front man of a struggling rock band, is watching “Shimokitazawa Exodus” in the Tollywood’s other theater at the recommendation of the Crescent Rock’s manager (Kazunari Tosa). Its star is Madoka.
The two filmgoers quickly realize that they can communicate with the stranger on the screen. And they soon find out that their lives outside the Tollywood are fodder for their films. These revelations shock — and enlighten — them.
Kazuma watches as two troupe members tell Madoka they are quitting and her co-manager, Shiho (Riko Fujitani), does a celebratory fist pump under the table. He thinks it strange — a suspicion confirmed when he reads the plot synopsis in the film’s program, which reveals that Shiho is scheming behind Madoka’s back.
Meanwhile, Madoka sees Kazuma being summoned to the Crescent Rock, where two gangster types are threatening his three bandmates. The night before, one of the thugs lost a wad of cash while sitting at a table next to the band’s. Cut to a flashback of guitarist Mikoshiba (Shintaro Kanamaru) extracting ¥10,000 notes from an envelope.
These complications pale, however, when a sort of multiverse repairman (Munenori Nagano) warns Madoka and Kazuma that they are creating a cosmic crisis by telling each other the plots of their respective films. Naturally, from here on, their worlds go haywire.
As its story departs from real-world problems and ascends into the clouds of whimsical fantasy, the film begins to spiral...
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