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Fantasia 2025: Rewrite Review
Image Credit: Fantasia IFF
Loading...Directed by: Daigo Matsui
Written by: Makoto Ueda
Starring:
Elaiza Ikeda – Miyuki Ishida
Kei Adachi – Yasuhiko Sonoda
Sayu Kubota – Suzuko Hayashi
Yuki Kura – Shigeru Sakai
Ai Hashimoto – Tomoe Amamiya
Akari Fukunaga – Haruko Nishiyama
Ôshirô Maeda – Daisuke Muroi
Running Time: 127 minutes
Not Rated
Makoto Ueda is arguably the king of modern Japanese time travel movies. Ueda has written a number of films tackled the concept including Summer Time Machine Blues and, more recently, the delightful time loop comedies Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes and River. Ueda has demonstrated a rock-solid grasp on how to make a tired, often convoluted concept feel fresh and affecting.
That being the case, it’s no surprise that Rewrite hits so many good notes. The Daigo Matsui-directed romantic sci-fi dramedy, which premiered at Fantasia Fest on Thursday, benefits from strong performances and an assured tone from his director, all of which elevate an intricate screenplay from Ueda that may not always handle its tone mashup well but hits its emotional beats incredibly well.
Rewrite begins in 2009 when Miyuki (Elaiza Ikeda) is in her final year of high school. Her routine of spending time with fellow bookworm Tomoe (Ai Hashimoto) is disrupted when new transfer student Yasuhiko (Kei Adachi) arrives. The day after he is introduced to the class, Miyuki is in the library alone when he suddenly appears. He tells her his secret; he’s from 300 years in the future and came back in time because of a book he read.
The two begin a romance and she later leans from her future self that the book in question, Girl Leaps Time, was written by her detailing their relationship. Yasuhiko leaves after making Miyuki promise to write the book to create a perfect time loop and avoid paradox and, 10 years later, she’s become a successful author with the book about to be published. But things don’t turn out as she expected and, as she prepares for her high school reunion, it becomes clear that things may not have been quite as she thought.
Adapted from the 2012 novel by Haruka Hojo, Rewrite is – appropriately enough for a time loop film – a full circle moment for the subgenre in Japan. It features heavy nods to The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, the 1967 novel by Nobuhiko Obayashi that has had a heavy influence on time travel, all the way down to being shot in Onomichi City which served as the setting for many of Obayashi’s stories. But the film isn’t just paying homage here; Ueda’s script turns the time loop romance narrative on its head in the second act when Miyuki begins to realize there’s something even more going on than she believed.
It’s not always easy to properly balance a film that transitions from one tone to another. Rewrite not only takes on that challenge; it ups the ante by starting off with the high school romance in act one, then switching to a more comedic mystery in act two before it transitions into something deeper and more emotionally resonant in the final stretch.
Matsui handles these tonal switches fairly well, doing his best to smooth things out even when the narrative gets messy. There is no such thing as a simple time travel film, and certain aspects of the plot get incredibly intricate as we’ll learn. But while the nuts and bolts of what’s going on may require a mental chart to keep things straight, the core of the matter is easy to follow and it makes the shell game’s worth of details a joy to watch. It’s elaborate enough that if there are plot holes then they aren’t obvious, and that alone is a titanic accomplishment.
It all works thanks in large part to a very talented cast who give it their all. Ikeda is the clear standout, capturing the nuances of Miyuki from high school up into adulthood. It’s a layered performance that stands tall among coming-of-age films. Hashimoto also shines in the smaller role of Tomoe, while Yuji Kura gets a lot of fun moments as Shigeru, a classmate who may be the key to answers. Adachi makes less of a mark as Yasuhiko but is affable enough that his appeal to Miyuki is obvious, and their chemistry makes the “young love” first act quite touching.
As much as the house of cards built here generally works, there are some shaky moments. The number of final act reveals leads to some of them becoming murky, and a lot of exposition that slows it down right when it should be speeding up. And one supporting character’s arc is wildly out of tone with the rest, using a very touchy theme that isn’t given the gravity it deserves. It’s by far the most glaring problem with the movie, particularly when it feels very much like an unforced error that didn’t need to be done the way it was.
Fortunately, outside of that rather unfortunate issue there is a ton to like here. It’s a smart, often funny and careful film about what it means to come of age, the impact of young love, and how important it is to be able to tell your own story.
The Fantasia International Film Festival takes place in Montreal from July 16th through August 3rd.
