The Real Thing

Enough coincidence and happenstance exists in this film to fill a dozen studio love stories, but that doesn’t mean any of it is unearned. There’s no safety net here, making Tsuji and Ukiyo’s epic tale of unrequited love, absence, and yearning the ultimate leap of faith.

Though it comes with good credentials, four hours feels like a lot of screen real estate for a what is essentially an elevated soap opera. For the home-streaming viewer though, The Real Thing meets the essential requirements for binge-watching: it’s undemanding to follow but sustains enough of a mystery to keep us hooked.

The film reveals Kôji Fukada to be playing a patient, very resonant long game, underscoring the struggle to wrest oneself out of social vices.

There’s no selling out here. No concessions to mainstream taste. On the contrary, The Real Thing might be the purest — if not the most concise — work yet from an emerging auteur who’s singularly compelled by the friction between public order and private chaos.

A tale of boy-meets-girl, girl-wrecks-boys-life told with sublime melancholy by Japanese auteur Kôji Fukada, The Real Thing plays like the darkest “romantic comedy” you ever saw.

There are a lot of fragmentary ideas in The Real Thing, but they’re not cohesive or worthwhile as they’re loosely formed into one grey 232-minute lump.