When I was a teenager in a Pennsylvania mill town ¡°We Gotta Get Out of This Place¡± by The Animals was my personal anthem, as it was for American soldiers then fighting and dying in Vietnam. I finally made my escape, thankfully.
Koji (Tappei Aono), the earnest protagonist of Masaki Tsujino¡¯s ¡°A Tale of the Riverside¡± also wants out of a bad situation, stuck as he is managing a busy minshuku (Japanese-style inn) alone in a natural beauty spot in the middle of nowhere. His single dad (Yoshimasa Kondo) has eloped with a secret girlfriend, leaving the family business to his younger son.
This opening promises comedy, and Tsuijno, who is making his feature directorial debut at age 50-plus, tries hard for laughs, mostly supplied by motormouth characters who might as well be carrying signboards saying ¡°comic relief.¡± But taking inspiration from Terrence Malick¡¯s ¡°Badlands¡± and Mike Nichols¡¯ ¡°The Graduate,¡± Tsujino shifts the story toward awkward romantic drama, with the two principals pursued by darkness in their pasts.
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