Gekijo

Theatre: A Love Story movie asks many important questions on life. These questions are presented in a very natural way as the story evolves, mostly in the form of Nagata. Nagata walks in the Tokyo streets for his ideas, for his inspiration, for a story that will make him an acclaimed writer. Saki, on the other hand is a tolerating woman who is growing up in their relationship and doing the right things. Do you accept life? How far are you willing to go to learn the truth? What do you finally settle for? Good questions..

Wonderful acting, progressive women, plenty of brilliance in the story and the direction and a very strong second half that will pull you in. Amazing experience. The ending is strong too but a bit challenging, unexpected and could have been done differently.

" Theater : A Love Story " is an ambitious movie.

Filmed as a theater play and narrated by the main lead, it shows the love but catastrophic relationship between two people who kept the plug on the relationship way too long. And, honestly, their good times were far less than their bad ones. The male lead was self distractive, dragging the girl down with him. The latter could have done better, but, apparently, she just didn't see the harm that she was receiving from him.

So, on that aspect, the movie was great, as it presented a more realistic take on a love story. However, while watching it, it felt like something was missing. Had it be the lack of intimacy between them (they looked more like roommates than lovers), a climax to their toxic relationship, or a burst from the female lead, the whole film felt that it was moving on an andante pace and without a proper introduction or pre-phase to the events that were happening.

That said, the leading lady was hands down, the best thing that the movie had to offer. Not that Kento didn't do a great job in this one, but she was just delightful, emotional, entertaining, relatable, and just amazing when it came to her performance. Also, the ending was brilliant and masterfully handled.

So, overall, five out of ten.

If young people who are struggling to do art today, watch this movie, is it possible to keep tears? It tells the story heartlessly as if throwing them on a cold concrete floor. The fragile love story of those days when we were so weak and coward do not know how to deal with. In some parts, it was like the story of the director himself, and in other parts, I felt like my life was on the theater stage. I would like to express my utmost admiration for this movie that made me such an amazing experience. Obviously one of the best movies of my life.

At first, I was a bit annoyed by the male lead (played by Yamazaki), but then I remembered the context of the story. Sometimes the individual is frustrated with his/her career, is naive, doesn't have too much experience in life, so it's natural for him/her to screw up. It's hard to understand someone when yourself have troubles that you need to work on.

Both Yamazaki and specially Matsuoka done a terrific job in this film. Everyone is not perfect all the time and this film makes it clear. When you're used to watching "more of the same" or movies with certain tropes, you get unaccustomed at first with characters acting like real people, and this film captures that essence with success. Some scenes end abruptly, they lack music, but such is life. The real emotions this film invokes is making the audience put the pieces together in most of those situations. When I finished this film, all I could think about was how everything fit together by the end and I forgot I was watching a film altogether.

I hope this film gets better recognition and more people on Prime give it the attention it deserves.

There's much to like about this, though the slowness is severely debilitating.

I ended up digging the story, enjoying the cast and becoming interested in the characters but the extremely slow, one of the slowest paces I've ever seen, nature of 'Theatre: A Love Story' just significantly overshadows any positives feelings I have for this unfortunately.

It's 2hrs 15mins and I felt every single second, by the end I felt like I had just watched a 3hr+ movie. And that sucks, because I came close to enjoying it. Kento Yamazaki and Mayu Matsuoka are very good, I am more than open to seeing more of their respective works.

As I type this my instant thoughts about this 2020 flick are actually positive, but I can't let the pacing issues slide sadly. Worth a watch, despite my feelings I'm not surprised to see others love it - each to their own, as always!