"I know that many film fans have an allergy to films based on plays," writes Kenji Yamauchi on the website for his new film, "At the Terrace" ("At the Terrace: Terasu Nite"). "The never-changing setting and the long conversations bore them."
"Boring," however, was not my thought as I watched this ensemble comedy, based on Yamauchi's own award-winning play, at the 29th Tokyo International Film Festival. Similar to "Her Father, My Lover" ("Tomodachi no Papa ga Suki"), Yamauchi's 2015 film that also screened in TIFF's Japanese Cinema Splash section, "At the Terrace" wants to be witty and a touch scandalous.
Though not often seen in Japanese films, this combination will be familiar to fans of Billy Wilder, Neil Simon and, going back even further than postwar-era Hollywood and Broadway, Oscar Wilde. But while "Her Father, My Lover" struggled under the weight of its own conceits, including the main one of a young woman determined to seduce her best pal's dad, "At the Terrace" remains light on its feet from beginning to end, despite moments when its clever artifices threaten to crumble, like a pastry sculpture left too long in the sun.