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‘Egoist’ Review: Surprising Plot Twists Steer Steamy Gay Melodrama Into Maudlin Territory
Daishi Matsunaga’s adaptation of Makoto Takayama’s novel about a hunky Japanese fashion editor learning to love himself is a frictionless affair.
For try as Suzuki and Miyazawa do to breathe life into their respective characters, script and cinematography conspire constantly to make these two young men look and feel two-dimensional, capable only of bright smiles or dour groans, with little in between. Flirting with melodrama, Matsunaga never quite finds the right tonal balance between the earnestness of a sun-dappled romance he sketches and the more depressing story about grief he ends up crafting — especially once Kôsuke gets to meet Ryûta’s mother (Yuko Nakamura) and takes a liking to her. The film suffers from a self-serious tone it breaks only during scenes with Kôsuke’s friends, whose brief conversations open up the world of “Egoist” in delightfully welcome ways — only to then be relegated to minor moments in favor of awkward exchanges between boyfriends, and later still between the two men and Ryûta’s mother.
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