Sight&Sound - 05.2020

(Jacob Rumans) #1

REVIEWS


70 | Sight&Sound | May 2020

Reviewed by David Perrin
Werner Herzog continues to show little regard for
the border between fiction and documentary in
the Tokyo-set Family Romance, LLC., a fascinating
no-frills hybrid, shot on a micro-budget, that
gleefully defies easy categorisation and makes
for an endlessly strange addition to Herzog’s
oeuvre. Compared to his recent output, Herzog
here is working in a minor key: this self-financed
film is surprisingly intimate, with unexpected
dashes of melodrama, yet still displays
characteristic elements of wild stylisation and a
keen affinity for the uncanny and the absurd.
Ishii Yuichi is founder of the titular real-
life company, which hires out rented actors
to impersonate whoever the client pleases,
including family members. Here, he plays
himself assuming an assortment of different roles
depending on client needs. It’s a head-spinning
conceit that Herzog takes no small pleasure in
staging, as Ishii morphs chameleon-like from
scene to scene in re-enacted scenarios that
walk the line between hilariously bizarre and
downright sad; meanwhile, the film channels
the aesthetics of soap opera, with corny slow-
motion effects and awkward flourishes of
saccharine music. But its core revolves around
a collection of heartfelt scenes in which Ishii
plays the father of 12-year-old Mahiro (Tanimoto
Mahiro), whose actual father abandoned her
when she was an infant. It’s unclear whether
Mahiro knows that Ishii is a plant hired by her

mother or if she believes Ishii is really her father,
and it’s this ambiguity that morally complicates
an already knotty story, particularly when
Mahiro begins to develop genuine feelings
for Ishii. Moments of deceptively authentic
tenderness between the two are difficult to parse,
especially with everything already occurring
at several degrees removed from the real.
Herzog refrains from offering an explicit
critique of Ishii and his business, monetising
relationships that merely simulate intimacy.
Instead, there is the sense of a filmmaker
captivated by his subject, using Ishii as a
means of examining a facet of contemporary
Japanese culture, an obsession with the
nurturing of artificial selves and the
manufacture of experiences. This reaches
its apotheosis in Ishii’s visit to a funeral
parlour to look at coffins, in order to play
the role of a dead person at a fake funeral.
The organic embedding of these ideas into the
narrative is in contrast to a formal rawness – the
handheld camera (operated by Herzog himself)
spontaneously capturing the undirected flow of
Tokyo’s crowded streets and parks, with particles
of real life being seamlessly absorbed into the
film. Thematically analogous images and motifs
that qualify as quintessentially ‘Herzogian’ also
appear, most memorably Ishii’s visit to a hotel
staffed by robot employees and featuring a water-
tank housing robotic fish, the sort of thing Herzog
might have invented – and perhaps he did.

Family Romance, LLC.
USA 2019
Director: Werner Herzog

Tokyo, the present. Yuichi Ishii, founder of Family
Romance, a company that rents out hired actors to
impersonate real people, is hired to impersonate the
missing father of 12-year-old Mahiro by her mother. Their
relationship deepens as Mahiro becomes emotionally
attached to Ishii. Meanwhile, other activities of Ishii’s

business are shown, such as an elderly woman desiring
to re-create the experience of winning the lottery.
Mahiro’s mother asks Ishii to move in with them, but he
refuses. He ponders the possibility that his own family
could be hired actors playing roles. Afterwards, he
returns to his own home, but hesitates outside the door.

Produced by
Roc Morin
Written by
Werner Herzog
Camera
Werner Herzog
Edited by
Sean Scannell

Set Design
Mira Brower
Music Composed
and Arranged by
Ernst Reijseger
Sound Designer/Mix
Mark Mangini
Costumes

Ruth Tzipora
©Skellig Rock
Production
Company
Skellig Rock
presents a film by
Werner Herzog

Cast
Ishii Yuichi
Ishii Yuichi
Tanimoto Mahiro
Mahiro
Fujimaki Miki
Mahiro’s mother
Nakatani Takashi

father of bride,
lottery official
Manda Kumi
Mrs Nakatani,
mother of bride
Watanabe Yuka
bride
Kuroinu Jin

Ishii’s friend
In Colour
[1.85:1]
Subtitles
Distributor
Modern Films

The game of the pose: Ishii Yuichi, Tanimoto Mahiro

Credits and Synopsis

Reviewed by Violet Lucca
Spoiler alert: this review
reveals a plot twist
In this confused reboot of a
43-year-old television show,
Mr. Roarke (Michael Peña)
is the keeper of a mysterious island where
people’s fantasies are magically granted:
stepbrothers J.D. and Brax get a big sexy
party; Gwen gets a second chance to accept a
marriage proposal; Melanie gets even with a
childhood bully; Patrick is a soldier. But the
fantasies turn dark – though this involves more
schmaltz than eeriness or gore – with a group
of Russians indiscriminately blowing away
the visitors and the actors in their fantasies.
It transpires that the unstable Melanie has
created a meta-fantasy to punish the other
visitors: everyone present is connected to the
death of Nick, a guy Melanie was obsessed with
before he burned alive in his apartment. The twist
isn’t terribly surprising, since the screenwriters’
contempt for Melanie has been apparent from
the start. A more interesting TV sampling could
have been the premise of the quasi-philosophical
Red Dwarf episode ‘Better than Life’, in which
Arnold Rimmer’s death wish and self-hate, rather
than forming a revenge plot, replace increasingly
ecstatic fantasies with torturous punishments.

Fantasy Island
USA 2020
Director: Jeff Wadlow
Certificate 15 108m 58s

Fantasy Island, present day. Gwen, Patrick, Melanie
and stepbrothers J.D. and Brax arrive by plane, and
are greeted by Mr. Roarke, keeper of the island. Their
fantasies begin to be realised, but soon turn very
dark; a number of people, including J.D., are killed.
Gwen realises everyone on the island is connected to
the death of her neighbour Nick. Eventually, Melanie
reveals that she was in love with Nick, and her fantasy
is to hurt those she holds responsible. Sloane – a
childhood bully brought to the island for Melanie
to torture – fantasises that Melanie should spend
eternity with Nick: he bursts from the secret magical
spring that creates the fantasies and pulls Melanie
inside. Brax fantasises that J.D. is brought back to
life, but he must stay on the island to keep his brother
alive. He reveals to Roarke his old nickname: Tattoo.

Produced by
Marc Toberoff
Jeff Wadlow
Jason Blum
Written by
Jeff Wadlow
Chris Roach
Jillian Jacobs
Based upon
the television
series created
by Gene Levitt
Director of
Photography
Toby Oliver
Edited by
Sean Albertson
Production
Designer
Marc Fisichella
Music
Bear McCreary
Production Mixer
Chris Hiles
Costume Designer
Lisa Norcia
Visual Effects
Provided by
Nishimuraland
Tempest FX
Monsters Aliens
Robots Zombies

Stunt Co-ordinator
Alan D’Antoni
©Columbia Pictures
Industries, Inc.
and Blumhouse
Productions, LLC
Production
Companies
Columbia Pictures
and Blumhouse
present a Tower of
Babble production
A Jeff Wadlow film
Executive
Producers
Couper Samuelson
Jeanette Volturno

Cast
Michael Peña
Mr Roarke
Maggie Q
Gwen Olsen
Lucy Hale
Melanie Cole
Austin Stowell
Patrick Sullivan
Jimmy O. Yang
Brax Weaver
Portia Doubleday

Sloane Maddison
Ryan Hansen
JD Weaver
Michael Rooker
Damon
Mike Vogel
Lieutenant Sullivan
Parisa Fitz-Henley
Julia
Kim Coates
Devil Face
Robbie Jones
Allen Chambers
Charlotte McKinney
Chastity
Evan Evagora
Nick Taylor
Dolby Digital
In Colour
[2.35:1]
Distributor
Sony Pictures
Releasing

Credits and Synopsis

Available
on VOD
platforms
in the UK
Free download pdf