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Colorful
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
I don't remember, it's just been on my To-Watch list for a long time.
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
Final Verdict: [Weak]
Colorful
Drama / Japan / 2010
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
I don't remember, it's just been on my To-Watch list for a long time.
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
The premise of Colorful is Main Guy wakes up dead in some sort of purgatory for souls and is informed that if he wants a chance at reincarnation he must successfully complete an "Internship" in another person's body. The body in question is a middle school kid who attempted suicide but miraculously survives secretly as a result of this divine intervention. The movie proceeds as Main Guy attempts to orient himself in an unfamiliar body, home environment, and social life, while also coming to grips with how his body's former soul came to try and kill himself and whether he can actually complete this "challenge" with what seems to be very little direction.
This 6-month challenge, I would think, is obviously a challenge of the protagonist's moral character, but they dismissively dwell on their own circumstances rather than make the most of their situation or attempt to remedy existing problems with their host body's life.
It's established very quickly that his brother is selfish, his dad dislikes his job, his mother had an affair with a "gypsy gym instructor", and his romantic interest is a golddigger.
Immediately Main Guy just folds in on himself and refuses to appreciate the kind things his family is doing for them and looks on them with disgust and contempt. Especially his mom. His mom endures so much **** from Main Guy it makes it extremely difficult to like him as a character.
His mother supposedly had an offscreen affair, and yet onscreen she's relentlessly positive, apologetic, helpful, open and inviting, smiling, just straight up offering to return a ******* gift just in case her ungrateful little **** of a son doesn't appreciate the color and he's absolutely cold to her, eventually throwing her affair back in her face just to make her feel bad.
I had hoped by the end of the movie that relationship would be resolved, but it never really is. We find out that his "selfish" brother suddenly decided to pursue a career in medicine immediately after Main Guy's suicide attempt, we find out Dad [insert some forgettable thing that redeems his honestly untarnished character], and we find out Mom was already grieving over her own mother's death when Main Guy's host body decided to take the Room Temperature Challenge. All very good reasons to try and rekindle some sort of relationship with the rest of the family, but no, no "Sorry I've been an ungrateful hateful little douchebag to you for half a year," no "Omigosh how thoughtless of me not to realize how much you care when basically the whole family is going out of it's way to help me get into a really nice school tailoring specifically to my hobbies", no, in fact the closest we get to any sort of resolution is simply Main Guy admitting that he's made a friend (a reference to sequence that takes WAY too much ******* screentime mind you) and that, given it's his first real friend, it means a lot to him to go to the same school as him.
Everyone seems pretty chill with that, and tears were shed, but I don't think that at all redeems all the unnecessarily callous bull**** leading up to that point.
Main Guy's so hypocritical even, that while he treats his mother like a filthy whore ("Why are you pretending to be a good mother?") he flat-out DENIES that his romantic interest is guilty of sleeping with a sugar daddy just so he'd buy her stupid ****. That wake-up call eventually comes around, but AGAIN there's no immediate realization of "Wow, I still manage to see the bright side of this person who does things I disagree with, maybe I should apply that same perspective to my Mom." Nope. Doesn't happen.
Yet I guess that was supposed to be the message of the movie, that people are "colorful" or multi-faceted. Not just unilaterally evil or good people. What a ****in' infantilizing message for the audience, you really needed a narrative about suicide and divine redemption to teach the kind of lesson Barney the Dinosaur could tell you about? The whole suicide thing and redemption arc ("Figure out what your sin was in your previous life to explain why we're punishing you with this challenge now.") is frankly vapid. There's virtually no substance to it and the big reveal ends up being, are you ready for this?:
YOU WERE JUST AN AMNESIAC THE WHOLE TIME!
Whew, that's an amazing twist right there. I can't really say I wasn't surprised, but I was definitely disappointed. That reveal just overall does so little. I was expecting a closing sequence in which Main Guy loses control of the body, the original soul comes back and we see the original character react to a post-suicide-attempt-world in which he has friends, his family cares deeply for him, and there is no third thing, those two things are enough.
But no, no pleasantly heartrending surprise as the crushing drama of someone realizing what they compromised by trying to kill themselves suddenly comes into focus, no grander message of appreciating the things you have and really making what little you have the opportunities therein count, none of that, just a lot of filler dialog that really doesn't seem like it amounts to anything.
And all of that's to say nothing of the REAL romantic interest who flits around the corners of the story butting her head in to emphasize that she knows Main Guy better than anyone else because she has a wholesome crush on him and spends most of the movie getting shoo'd away by him.
In fact, Main Guy becomes so reprehensible at one point that he attempts to destroy her perception of him as a good and strong person by showing her porn and forcing himself on her.
That only results in a half-baked apology. Wonderful.
Critical as may sound, I didn't hate the movie, and it's nowhere near as frustrating as other movies I've seen, but perhaps that's because I wasn't invested and the movie's pretty slow, rather than an onslaught of contrivances and stupid characters competing against each other for a Darwin Award.
This 6-month challenge, I would think, is obviously a challenge of the protagonist's moral character, but they dismissively dwell on their own circumstances rather than make the most of their situation or attempt to remedy existing problems with their host body's life.
It's established very quickly that his brother is selfish, his dad dislikes his job, his mother had an affair with a "gypsy gym instructor", and his romantic interest is a golddigger.
Immediately Main Guy just folds in on himself and refuses to appreciate the kind things his family is doing for them and looks on them with disgust and contempt. Especially his mom. His mom endures so much **** from Main Guy it makes it extremely difficult to like him as a character.
His mother supposedly had an offscreen affair, and yet onscreen she's relentlessly positive, apologetic, helpful, open and inviting, smiling, just straight up offering to return a ******* gift just in case her ungrateful little **** of a son doesn't appreciate the color and he's absolutely cold to her, eventually throwing her affair back in her face just to make her feel bad.
I had hoped by the end of the movie that relationship would be resolved, but it never really is. We find out that his "selfish" brother suddenly decided to pursue a career in medicine immediately after Main Guy's suicide attempt, we find out Dad [insert some forgettable thing that redeems his honestly untarnished character], and we find out Mom was already grieving over her own mother's death when Main Guy's host body decided to take the Room Temperature Challenge. All very good reasons to try and rekindle some sort of relationship with the rest of the family, but no, no "Sorry I've been an ungrateful hateful little douchebag to you for half a year," no "Omigosh how thoughtless of me not to realize how much you care when basically the whole family is going out of it's way to help me get into a really nice school tailoring specifically to my hobbies", no, in fact the closest we get to any sort of resolution is simply Main Guy admitting that he's made a friend (a reference to sequence that takes WAY too much ******* screentime mind you) and that, given it's his first real friend, it means a lot to him to go to the same school as him.
Everyone seems pretty chill with that, and tears were shed, but I don't think that at all redeems all the unnecessarily callous bull**** leading up to that point.
Main Guy's so hypocritical even, that while he treats his mother like a filthy whore ("Why are you pretending to be a good mother?") he flat-out DENIES that his romantic interest is guilty of sleeping with a sugar daddy just so he'd buy her stupid ****. That wake-up call eventually comes around, but AGAIN there's no immediate realization of "Wow, I still manage to see the bright side of this person who does things I disagree with, maybe I should apply that same perspective to my Mom." Nope. Doesn't happen.
Yet I guess that was supposed to be the message of the movie, that people are "colorful" or multi-faceted. Not just unilaterally evil or good people. What a ****in' infantilizing message for the audience, you really needed a narrative about suicide and divine redemption to teach the kind of lesson Barney the Dinosaur could tell you about? The whole suicide thing and redemption arc ("Figure out what your sin was in your previous life to explain why we're punishing you with this challenge now.") is frankly vapid. There's virtually no substance to it and the big reveal ends up being, are you ready for this?:
YOU WERE JUST AN AMNESIAC THE WHOLE TIME!
Whew, that's an amazing twist right there. I can't really say I wasn't surprised, but I was definitely disappointed. That reveal just overall does so little. I was expecting a closing sequence in which Main Guy loses control of the body, the original soul comes back and we see the original character react to a post-suicide-attempt-world in which he has friends, his family cares deeply for him, and there is no third thing, those two things are enough.
But no, no pleasantly heartrending surprise as the crushing drama of someone realizing what they compromised by trying to kill themselves suddenly comes into focus, no grander message of appreciating the things you have and really making what little you have the opportunities therein count, none of that, just a lot of filler dialog that really doesn't seem like it amounts to anything.
And all of that's to say nothing of the REAL romantic interest who flits around the corners of the story butting her head in to emphasize that she knows Main Guy better than anyone else because she has a wholesome crush on him and spends most of the movie getting shoo'd away by him.
In fact, Main Guy becomes so reprehensible at one point that he attempts to destroy her perception of him as a good and strong person by showing her porn and forcing himself on her.
That only results in a half-baked apology. Wonderful.
Critical as may sound, I didn't hate the movie, and it's nowhere near as frustrating as other movies I've seen, but perhaps that's because I wasn't invested and the movie's pretty slow, rather than an onslaught of contrivances and stupid characters competing against each other for a Darwin Award.