Ashley Jones Is Perfectly Normal

This is a story about Ashley and how she suddenly becomes "not normal". The resulting situation is full of conflict and takes you through a range of emotions. Hana Yuka Sano, who plays Ashley, artfully conveys the character's sensitivity and beauty and her performance draws the viewer in.

Ashley Jones Is Perfectly Normal is a very complex storyline touching upon a plethera of Contemporary issues like stereotypes, racism, intolerance, assimilation, intolerance, discrimination and the dangers of not believing in your inner self, There were subtleties like the town's name being "Santa Norma" that Larry's potato winds up being the .............. That was was a very nice touch.

Yuka Sano the female lead was extremely good portraying Ashley Joes. Convincingly portraying the courage of conscience.

I will watch this again as I probably missed something on the 1st viewing.

This a most enjoyable film to watch.

Life isn't about being perfect. Or normal. Or perfectly normal. Just ask Ashley Jones. After waking up with a bizarre, yet hilarious case of "foreign accent syndrome", our heroine embarks upon a strangely-relatable quest for happiness and self-worth. Everyone is different and thus, everyone has their own version of normal. And that version of normal is what adds color and joy to our lives. It's what makes us valuable in a world that pressures us to bland in and play it safe. Oh, I meant "blend".

Writer Kevin Stock and Director Thomas Bangert present a comedy that will elicit both laughter and contemplation from their audience. And Hana Yuka Sano's performance as Ashley is charming, yet brilliantly complex.

From Ashley's strange "malady" to meeting a 500,000 year old woman, to bantering with the sassy narrator (also voiced by Stock), this film is far from normal. It's different. And that's what makes it so wonderful.

Ashley Jones is Perfectly Normal is a movie about accepting what makes you different and what others may see as flaws, and flourishing despite all of the obstacles that may arise because of those differences. The tasteful race humor and moments of elegant writing bring a relatability desperately needed for a film such as this to work. Despite stumbling through pacing and formatting at some points, Ashley Jones is Perfectly Normal manages to craft an enjoyable family experience that both entertains and presents an important theme.

We found this movie on Amazon streaming. The trailer looked very interesting. My wife lasted about 15 minutes, it was too quirky for her. I stuck with it and enjoyed it. Some scenes, like the table in the restaurant were perfectly symmetrical, the filming and some of the dialog reminded me of some scenes in Wes Anderson movies.

The star is Hana Yuka Sano as Ashley Jones, a perfectly normal California TV reporter, married to a perfectly normal man, every week for six years they ate at the same restaurant, seated at the same table, and he always had a tenderloin cooked medium with three potatoes. She always had pasta with marinara, no meatballs.

All this 'normalcy' (or is it 'normality'?) is to set up the rest of the movie. One morning Ashley wakes up without her usual California accent, instead she has a Japanese accent, for no reason. Things happen as a result, her husband leaves, her job is in jeopardy, she is self-conscious about her condition. (There is a real condition, 'foreign accent syndrome', commonly caused by a sudden damage to the brain.)

So the quirky story has one aim, that is to accept yourself and if life gives you surprises just go with them. I didn't have much success finding anything about Hana Yuka Sano but it appears that she is a Japanese-American actress, so her 'foreign' accent is probably pretty real. If you look closely at her mouth movements when speaking in California accent you see a slight lack of synchronization, and in the end credits, another voice actress is credited with Ashley's California accent. Clever film making.