Honey and Clover : Movie
Title: Honey and Clover aka Hachimitsu
to Clover
Genre: Romance/Drama
Director: Takada
Masahiro
Format: Movie;
116 minutes.
Dates: 22
Jul 2006
Synopsis: College sophomore Takemoto Yuuta moves
from the countryside to Tokyo to attend an art college. He lives in the same
apartment complex as his friends and fellow students Morita Shinobu and Mayama
Takumi and later befriends the female student Yamada Ayumi. One day, Takemoto
is introduced to a relative of a professor at the college, Hanamoto Hagumi, and
he falls in love with her. The story follows the love triangles that develop
within the group.
The Highlights
Exposition: Somewhat
clunky and not very subtle.
Romance: Feels
real thanks to the solid characters.
Music: Makes
good use of insert songs.
Honey and
Clover is perhaps best known as a pair of TV anime series but the show was also
adapted into a live action film and later into a TV drama. The movie faces a
daunting challenge in converting ten manga volumes’ worth of content into a
comprehensible two hour story and it only somewhat succeeds. Luckily, the plot
is revamped to entice first-time viewers, cutting and pasting scenes from the
source and adding new material to create an entirely new story. The result is a
rushed but mostly coherent narrative that fails in small ways but succeeds
where it counts.
The film
is chock-full of sentimental monologues and well-timed insert songs, and it
consistently demonstrates that it has a good feel for drama despite the lack of
directorial flair. Nothing is understated but it also doesn’t suffer from the
kind of melodrama common to shoujo/josei manga and their related live action
adaptations. The exposition is problematic, however: the story begins in medias
res and elements like Yamada’s love for Mayama are introduced either awkwardly
or blatantly to save time. Much of the beginning of the movie feels as though
it’s moving too fast, and the viewer is told who loves whom without being shown
good reason to believe it.
Fortunately,
the lack of subtlety is offset by the cleverly crafted love triangles and the
strength of the characters. The entire cast is interesting and quirky without
being unrealistic, and the situations they find themselves in are heart-wrenching
enough to overshadow a careless or rushed introduction. Admittedly, the story
is far from perfect — while the basic outline of the messy love triangles is
alluring to fans of romance and drama, each scenario moves too quickly to allow
the viewer time to grow attached to the characters, and the abrupt conclusion
provides only a semblance of closure. Yet at the same time, the film doesn’t
necessarily aim for closure: it aims to tell a bittersweet tale of unrequited
love. It succeeds in that regard, but it’s impossible to ignore the
uncomfortable pace at which things develop and the “what now?” questions that
spring up at the conclusion.
The movie
is unremarkable from a technical point of view. The directing is fairly plain
and more reminiscent of a television drama than a film, usually favouring
straightforward storytelling over any sort of dramatic flair. That said, there
are one or two scenes that don’t suffer from this blandness (particularly the
one in which Hagu and Morita engage in impromptu abstract painting), and the
monologues add interest to what would otherwise be a painfully mundane way of
telling an interesting story. The film scores major points for its music:
insert songs are used to punctuate some of the most important scenes, adding a
maudlin pop flavour in contrast with the subtleties of instrumental background
music that one would expect to see. As it turns out, pop ballads are an
effective (if a tad lazy) way of conveying not just emotion, but also the tone
of certain scenes. For better or worse, they help turn the film from a subdued
slice-of-life into a real drama.
And yet,
the subdued nature of the story and dialogue are visible even through the
occasional bland and clunky moments in the presentation. It’s an odd
combination but it works in a way, generating a more wistful aftertaste than
most live action dramas. The issues with the plot and pacing will inevitably
plague the film as it rushes by too quickly to give the viewer time to stop and
smell the roses, but it still manages to convey the bittersweet sentiments that
the script promises. The heart of the story shines through where it counts, and
for that alone the film is watchable despite its flaws.
