Solanin
While watching the film, I couldn’t help but nag about it the entire time… It was so stupid. The actors were downright horrible, the film did everything wrong that it could: They left out almost all of the nice details of the manga, they rushed through the story especially for the first part of the film and whenever they tried to linger at one scene, it looks absolutely stupid – shitty scenery, sappy music all over the place. The director’s bad vision probably ruined every single good line of the story, and there are a lot of them. Sometimes, when the characters say something important, the audience should be able to see it. I didn’t really get the feeling that the characters were lost in their lives and I couldn’t always feel with them. The feeling the film gives you is totally different from the manga.
With this criticism, I should perhaps mention that it’s the first time I have seen a manga to film adaptation, and it’s also obvious that this was never attempted to be more than a B-movie. So perhaps my expectations are too high. Nevertheless, I think “Solanin” deserved better.
At the end of the day, though, I think the makers did alright. They even tried to imitate the fashion from the manga. But it’s probably hard to turn an Asano Inio manga into a movie, and they probably just didn’t have the brains to do it. At least the songs sounded good, they got the style of the film (slightly B-movie-ish with somewhat bad music and very cute clothing) and some of the scenes were very emotional, just like I have expected. I totally liked the side characters – Billy, Katou and his girlfriend – they were all incredibly likable. I wanted to like the “Solanin” film, and because the story is just that strong, I did.
Unfortunately that’s all. “Solanin” is a nice movie, and it could be recommendable for people who don’t like manga. Otherwise, read the manga, it’s a million times better. More dramatic, funnier, and especially more heart-wrenching.