WHITE ON RICE Review

White on Rice is a film that has slowly but surely garnered its fair share of buzz these past few months. I know Todd posted a brief review over the summer and I suspect the film is going to become a substantial cult célèbre even if it may be a while before many of you get a chance to see it.

White on Rice has become something of a festival darling and rousing crowd pleaser throughout its extensive fest play.  The film is currently being self promoted and independently distributed by its writer/director David Boyle. So if you're anxious to see it now, you need to go to the website and beg Dave to personally bring it to your town.

I'm sure the director is becoming more and more wary of all of the comparisons being made in reviews to Napoleon Dynamite.  Let me say they're unwarranted even if his viral marketing campaign has admittedly presented WOR in a very similar vein.

In short, WOR is a quirky fish out of water tale with a "loveable loser" in the lead.  The plot revolves around Uncle Jimmy, hilariously portrayed by Hiroshi Watanabe. Jimmy is a middle aged Japanese man who moves back in with his sister in America after his wife divorces him.  But there's good reason why Jimmy is now single and that's where the big catch comes.

Uncle Jimmy is actually anything but loveable. Oh, he is a loser through and through but he possesses few, if any redeeming character traits. Comparing WOR to Napoleon Dynamite based on surface traits does the film a great injustice.  It's a far far darker movie, shockingly so. I'd rather liken it as a cross between Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Tokyo Sonata and Observe and Report.

Uncle Jimmy isn't just goofy, he's mentally retarded and dangerous. He's brash, rude, selfish, and often throws violent temper tantrums. His actions go far beyond the silly man child antics of any Will Farrell role. And since the rest of the characters are firmly rooted in reality, his over the top behavior becomes all the more disturbing.

Like Seth Rogen's violently bi-polar mall cop comedy, I think many ScreenAnarchy Readers are going to find a lot of laughs in the film's wildly aberrant tone, even if the material is actually PG friendly.  Yeah, wrap your mind around that for a moment.   

But the heart of the film, or at least, its first two acts, isn't just watching Jimmy continually fuck things up.  The film is really about a family falling apart at the seams much like Tokyo Sonata.  Native Japanese actress, Nae Yuuki gives a terrific performance as Jimmy's responsible sister, Aiko. She dotes on her incompetent brother like a mother while ignoring her own pre-pubescent son, Bob, finely played by newcomer, Justin Kwong.

Meanwhile, Aiko's husband Tak also becomes increasingly depressed as his wife spends all of her affections on Jimmy.

All of the characters are fully fleshed out and impeccably well written, a refreshing thing as all of the main cast are Asian or Asian American, even more surprising  as the film was written and directed by a white man in his mid-twenties, a Mormon no less.

Let's get straight to the point, David Boyle is a Japan-o phile, something many of you Twitch guys out there can relate to. But David is an entirely different breed of Japan- o- phile. His background is not in anime, J-Horror, or any of the other things that attract many of us here. No, Dave was a Mormon missionary who happened to become fluent in Japanese while staying in Australia.  And if you haven't seen his debut film, Big Dreams, Little Tokyo, I strongly recommend you track it down and watch it immediately.

I caught Dave's first film at the Philadelphia International Film Festival a few years back and was impressed. The film's synopsis is one that initially made me cringe and I often find people rolling their eyes at me when I describe it to them.  Dave stars in it as a creepy Japon-ophile trying to make a career teaching Japanese to the Japanese in Los Angeles.  Of course, he falls in love with a cute Japanese nurse in the process.

But here's the thing, Dave's first film is smart, genuine, and very sincere. The humor is character driven and consistently avoids easy jokes as does White on Rice.  It was of the rarest film experience for me, a heartwarming and family friendly comedy about cross cultural differences that I thoroughly enjoyed.  We had to add screenings at the Philadelphia Film Festival after selling out due to positive word of mouth. So don't just take my word for it. This is all the more reason why White on Rice's first hour had my jaw on the floor.

In many ways, Uncle Jimmy is the physical incarnation of every horrible stereotype of Japanese men. Although a lot of it is going to go over most mainstream viewers' heads.   Once again, Dave doesn't go for the obvious jokes. Jimmy is not a retread of Mickey Rooney's terrifying portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffanys.  No, the cultural humor here is far more informed.  It made me recall a controversial lecture I once attended by a published and highly regarded anthropologist who was quoted as referring to Japan as a nation of over-educated  12 year old adults, a county of men incapable of taking care of themselves who marry less for love than to find a replacement for their mother.  This historian claimed that as a reason behind pedophilic pornography and manga being so prevalent in mainstream Japanese culture.

I'm not agreeing with any that, and it's foolish to make such sweeping statements on an entire culture but Uncle Jimmy is the embodiment of everything you might find on a Fuckedgaijin.com message board and reminded me of that lecture. Jimmy moves to America after running out of a 3 month supply of pre-prepared meals his ex wife left him. He is unable to drive, cook, or even tie his own shows, (he wears Velcro, again, like a mentally retarded person). He has an unhealthy obsession with dinosaurs, and there's a lot of underlying humor suggesting that he's a pedophile. He has fantasies about his significantly younger room-mate and niece in law still dressed in her middle school clothes making him brown bagged lunches.

This type of material may be polarizing for some viewers as there were a few audience members at the Austin Asian American Film Festival who felt offended. Yet, no other character in the film shares these characteristics.  It's an odd thing and I'm still a bit conflicted on it as a whole.  Although, I'll admit I laughed, and I laughed a lot. 

The film goes places I never would have imagined. If you think you know where it's heading, trust me, you don't, and that was really refreshing.  But the third act is a bit of a let down. WOR suddenly shifts to a much sweeter, nicer tone closer to that of Big Dreams, Little Tokyo. This is after Jimmy almost accidentally, and violently murders his brother in law. Everything wraps up a bit too nicely ala dues ex machina.  It really betrays all that comes before it although that's not to say it totally diminishes the previous two acts.  I just wished the tone was more consistent. Technically speaking, White on Rice is an noticeable advancement from Big Dreams, Little Tokyo. Despite my qualms with the story, David's direction has improved by leaps and bounds.

Oh, Bruce Campbell also provides his voice in a dubbed Samurai film within the film. So obviously, Dave's got full nerd cred here.

Again, White on Rice is not an Asian Napoleon Dynamite. It may be an Asian What About Bob or even an Asian Clifford, but it is not Napoleon Dynamite. That's probably an awesome thing depending on who you are, and here at ScreenAnarchy, I'll suspect that it's the former rather than the latter.