From Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, a director who is already figuring prominently in awards nominations with Drive My Car, comes another delicately humane story of chance connections and unexpected emotional links. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy premiered in Berlin last year, winning the Silver Bear, but was somewhat overshadowed by the ambition and scope of the Cannes prize-winning Drive My Car, which debuted a few months later. But this female-led triptych of stories, with its deft, empathetic camerawork and intimate, intricately crafted character sketches, is a minor masterpiece in its own right.
Unapologetically dialogue-heavy, each segment is given levity by a certain playfulness of approach. The first story, about a young woman who realises that her best friend’s new boyfriend is her own ex, concludes with a teasing dual ending. The second – the darkest – deals with an attempted honeytrap seduction with a terrific extended scene powered by a sparky erotic charge. And the final segment takes a gentle sci-fi premise – a devastating computer virus – but relegates it to the background in favour of a story of mistaken identities between two women.
The unexpected warmth and embrace of this final story makes it the most beguiling, but all three are tantalising glimpses executed by a film-maker who brings the precision of the very best short story writing to his cinema.
