The Google translation of this 2022 movie's title is "Even Dogs Don't Eat Tea and Laugh", but the title the producers used for English-speaking audiences is "Everything Will Be Owlright" presumably because the married couple at the center of the film inexplicably keep an owl in their apartment. Directed and written by Masahide Ichii, it's a comedy that's as quirky and loopy as either of its titles. The self-absorbed husband Yujiro, a data-collecting home improvement store manager, thinks his four-year marriage is going along just fine. Meanwhile, his put-upon wife Hiyori, a customer call center employee, is going through private turmoil, and her only outlet is contributing to a social media group called "Husband Death Note". It's an amusing premise that leads to shenanigans that intertwine their personal and professional lives and jeopardizes the fractious upcoming nuptials of Yujiro's younger colleague Hiroto. Ichii paces his film briskly with some funny scenes like the long-winded, initially clueless toast Yujiro gives at Hiroto's wedding and the employees' cathartic frustrations that boil over into a comic revolution against the call center manager. Shingo Katori and Yukino Kishii play the embattled couple with comic elan, but the scene stealer is Kumiko Yo as Yujiro's nosy colleague who unwittingly kick-starts the marital crisis. It's a very Japanese film.
