It has been five years, and Sano (Hiroki Sano) has finally returned to the recreational seaside town of Izu with his best friend Miyata (Yoshinori Miyata). This is the spot where he once met and fell in love with Nagi (Nairu Yamamoto), who later became his wife. But Nagi has recently died. He wishes to retrace the footsteps of the meet, and also to locate a red cap that he have to Nagi on their first date (and which she misplaced shortly after).
Grief and nostalgia are central to Kōhei Igarashi’s drama, Yet this is not your typical movie about pain and emotion. This is film of ambiguity, of the delicate balance between nostalgia and romantisation, between anger and self-destruction. Sano’s return to Izu is not a celebration of the life of his late wife, but a poor excuse to lash out at everyone around him, even poor Miyata who is trying to cheer him up.
He walks past room 819, which used to be hers, He passes a restaurant they ate, and where they sang Beyond the Sea at the karaoke. He takes a stroll along the beach, and takes a tour boat. Miyata seems worried for Sano. “You should drop it. It’s pointless”, he tries to talk reason to his friend. “You are a slave to things and time.”
Igarashi keeps the central relationship vague. At times, it almost seems as if Sano’s and Nagi’s romance started and concluded with their Izu encounter. Every conversation between Sano and Miyata during the course of five years around that summer. Anything else that happened is anyone’s guess. That she was unhappy and he was selfish is the only information Sano offers us. And that Nagi died in her sleep, owing a magazine a photoshoot.
But when Sano pushes it too far and drives Miyaki away, his memories give way to the second half of the film. We peek into wondrous meeting of which Sano cannot let go. Maybe, from a cynical point-of-view, it seems like a rather generic meet cute. The clumsy woman who keeps forgetting and losing everything comes across the brooding and chirpy guy, who is immediately smitten. Despite the mundaneness of the encounter, spark do fly. Viewers get a microscopic examination of two characters, and their allegiance to one another.
The titular Super Happy Forever is the name of a seminar in which Miyata takes part. And it is also how Nagi qualifies her feeling while slurping noodles outside a gas station. Is happiness confined to little moments? Or can you be supper happy forever?
Super Happy Forever premiered at the 72nd edition of the San Sebastian International Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. It also shows at the 28th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. In cinemas on Friday, July 4th.
