Nobody to Watch Over Me (Ryoichi Kimizuka, 2009): Japan

Reviewed by Charles Hedrick. Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival.

Nobody to Watch Over Me (also known as Dare mo mamotte kurenai) was perhaps my favorite drama at the Film Festival. One reason for this is because it discusses a topic which I happen to find very interesting–that “the media can sometimes go too far.” Another reason that this film is good is because it fulfills all of the requirements for a good drama. The first requirement is interesting characters that are easy to relate to. The other requirement is a good story. However, sometimes this film can get lost in its themes, making the story suffer a little bit and prolonging the film to a hefty two hours, when the story could have been told and all of the themes conveyed in about one and a half hours.

The story of Nobody to Watch Over Me follows a stressed out detective who has to protect the Saori (Mirai Shida), the younger sister of a boy who kills two people, from the media, and from the people who have been stirred up by the media and believe that the family of the boy should have to suffer too. Throughout the story the detective’s marriage falls apart, and the girl faces immense emotional problems as a result of the media stressing out her mother and driving her to suicide, as well as the angry mob of people that follow her to what seems like the ends of the earth. However, by around the end of the movie there appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

One of this film’s good aspects is definitely its good actors. For instance, Mirai Shida was able to portray her character (Saori) in a way that someone her age should not have been able to do. Another good aspect of this film is the topic that it discusses (the media can sometimes go too far). The reason that this is a good aspect is because a lot of people just do not seem to understand this idea of the media going too far and this film is just the kind of shock that some people need. However the film’s themes were sometimes too embellished upon, and would sometimes cause the film to drift away from the plot.  These themes should have been conveyed in a much more succinct manner. However, these over embellished themes did not ruin the story, but rather they just made the story take a much longer time to tell.

So this film, regardless of its wordy themes, contains excellent characters, a good plot, and a nice sweet ending. I can suggest this film to everyone who does not require instant gratification, and can be okay with a little bit of delayed gratification.  If you can sit through the two hours to finish this film, you will not regret it.