A lowlife, 39 year old film, director uses his position to sleep with young actresses under promise of making them stars. While doing this, he’s trying to get his next film produced and cast. Around him: His best friend makes porn films to gather money for a filming budget; a young film writer wants to get his script produced; a young actress falls in love with the film writer, et al. Everyone seems to be out for their own careers and selves, not caring about others.
Lowlife Love is written and directed by Eiji Uchida and is a study of people doing everything they need to get to their ends, to get fame for themselves, no matter the cost to others and themselves. Uchida crafts a study of what drives people, some people, to go to ends some never would to get what they want. His style is a bit in your face, showing events and how they affect everyone involved but never truly getting to the bottom of the reasons and the feelings behind it all.
To bring this to the screen, Uchida has a cast of 30 or so, most of them giving decent performances. Unfortunately, most of the characters feel a bit thin and one dimensional at times, with a very few standouts. Thankfully, one actress shows nuance and layers in her performance, Maya Okano as Minami shows the best arc, the best performance. She shows great talent and becomes the best part of the film. Her performance shows naïveté at first and then a form of regret as she has lost her innocence throughout the events of the film.
The cinematography by Kenji Noguchi follows the tone of the film, framing the scenes in ways to enhance their feeling of despair and of need for fame. The film feels almost dirty some times, claustrophobic at others times, all through the look the images’ framing give it. He adapts his style to what the scene needs, showing versatility. However, the film’s story not being exactly great, this is a bit lost in the shuffle.
Lowlife Love is an attempt at making a dark dramedy about what goes on behind the scenes of some films but it makes it sound like it’s what goes on behind all films. The story could have been great but its execution, starting with the story’s writing, is not on point. A lot of it feels as though the filmmaker is trying hard but not hitting his mark, the characters feel exaggerated, and this all leads to a less than fascinating film. Unless one is really into director Eiji Uchida’s films, it may not be worth watching.
Fantasia International Film Festival runs from July 14th until August 3rd, 2016.