Not Me That Went Viral (俺ではない炎上) (2025)

This book adaptation with a terribly translated English title starts promisingly with a social-media-age update of the Hitchcockian 'wrong man' plot, with Taisuke Yamagata, a fifty-something real estate sales manager, falsely accused of murder by well-meaning but misguided online amateur sleuths, but by the end, the tone has lurched awkwardly between comedy, thriller, and social commentary (isn't online amateur crime reporting terrible?), and the plot has required audiences to at once sympathise with Yamagata as the wronged hero while also regarding him with disdain and pity as a problematic antihero - a difficult balancing act given his portrayal by the likeable Hiroshi Abe.

★★☆☆☆

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After the Storm (海よりもまだ深く) (2016)

In English, Kore-eda Hirokazu's emotional and funny and perhaps slightly more twee than usual drama is called "After the Storm" but the typhoon takes place in the film's latter scenes with more time spent before the storm looking at main character, Ryota Shinoda, who is living a life he never intended - he is a hard-up one-time award-winning novelist now not making ends meet as a private detective and scamster, and it will take a thorough shake-up for him to wake up to his responsibilities to his ageing mother (Kirin Kiki - take tissues), his ex-wife and boy.

★★★★☆

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