A psychological movie that combines realism and surrealism to 'disturb' the audience and deals with certain themes related to people involved in idol and acting industry like doubting career choice and what one really wants, insanity, idol worship and actresses having to indulge in lewd activities despite their discomfort.
Its about a young idol who decides to switch her career from a pop star to an actress, but isn't sure if thats what she really wants especially after she has to taint her pure reputation by getting involved in sex scenes and nude photography. She is also being stalked by a creepy fan who loathes the idea of losing his favorite idol and will cross any line to get her back on the track.
It has a bleak, faded and realistic atmosphere and slightly slow pacing which suits the movie. It involves many scenes based on simple situations (lacking complex character dynamics and variety of events) both realistic as well as surreal ones (while still retaining realism in some aspects) which involve the main character hallucinating and interacting with a version of herself that is true to herself and losing the grip of reality. Most of the scenes try really hard to come across as creepy but are often cliché. The movie subverts the expectations it developed in its audience, blurs the line between reality and delusion and requires rewatching certain scenes to grasp everything entirely.
The main appeal of this movies lies in its realism, disturbing or creepy nature, its surreal nature, its plot-twists, its atmosphere and its themes. Most of these aspects of the film however, were pretty underwhelming. If anyone were to like this movie for being thrilling, it would be hard to believe because it utterly fails in that regard. Its scenes that are meant to stimulate strong emotions feel cliché, lack intensity and are based on very simple events.
Story and its themes:
The primary theme is about how having to give up one one's passion due to various reasons can badly influence a person's mental health It involves a young girl who decides to switch her career from a pop star to an actress but has to sell her sexual appeal through stuff like doing dirty scenes or nude photography which drives her to insanity in a subtle manner.
The other theme is about how some mentally ill, creepy, obsessive fans would go to any lengths to preserve the image of the idols they worship.
Some people might complain that the movie tries to incorporate too many themes for its own good and turns out to be a mess but its themes are highly related to each other and only feel like a mess because of some coincidences the story requires to move its plot and how it intentionally tries to confuse or mislead the audience.
Another problem with the story or the themes is that even though the movie is somewhat confusing but it still involves extremely simple events or scenes to convey them.
It did manage to show somewhat intense scenes about the theme of having to do dirty sex work in the acting industry even if the actress is uncomfortable about doing so.
The scenes that are supposed to show the mental state of the main character mostly involve the MC zoning out, the MC seeing an illusion of herself in her idol star dress who is true to her desires ,talking to herself sometimes through her mirror's reflection and sometimes from outside the mirror (hallucinations). There isn't anything that great about seeing a character zone out if you can't feel their pain or relate to them or like them, which wouldn't be the case here since the MC is portrayed as a very simple and naive character without much complexity or interesting personality traits. The scenes involving hallucinations are only there to create false sense of thrill and instead create cliché representation of a person's psychology.
Coming to the theme of creepy obsessive stalker, there aren't many scenes involving complex events related to this theme. Just some gore involving characters about which the audience isn't supposed to care about, some scenes emphasizing on how the stalker keeps staring at the MC and keeps track of her and acts slightly creepy. These things would be extremely disturbing in real life but while watching a movie, extra effort need to be put if you want to recreate realistic emotions to the events that play out which this movie fails to do. Heck, the stalker is made to look so hideous just so that the audience would feel disturbed but again its not enough. There was only one major scene involving an interesting situation or event involving the stalker, which was (I hope this doesn't come across as spoiler since its predictable considering the theme), the stalker trying to assault the MC but that too was cliché.
Maybe if the movie had more complex and interesting events related to its themes that actually feel intense or thrilling (like in death note or Fight Club), the movie would've been much better even if it required some more plot conveniences. The events and characters are too simple.
To make up for this simplicity the movie tries to confuse and mislead. An example of how it does that are scenes when it cutts off to the part where MC wakes up on her bed after something bizarre happens, so that the line between dream and reality blurs. A simple way to keep track of whether something happened or not is to think about the consequences. No consequences mean it did not happen. Speaking of consequences, there should've been horde of police or investigators at the front door of the MC asking questions related to criminal activities that she got herself involved in, adversly affecting her acting career. Another thing which might've caused some confusion is the fact that the condition of the role the MC is playing as an actress in a movie is similar to her real life conditions which might confuse some. The rest of it are just some cheap and misleading tricks to create confusion.
The disturbing part:
There is very little human warmth in this movie. Whatever there is, is very formal and is for the sake of character study. It involves gore and the female MC having to sell her sexual appeal for the sake of her career. There are (almost) rape scenes shown in a disturbing and realistic manner which can make some audience uncomfortable. The MC also gets creepy hallucinations because of her problems making the movie surreal. The creepy, hideous looking stalker who is obssesed with the MC, also adds to the disturbing nature of the movie. There are some other factor as well, adding to this aspect but I didn't find any of it intense enough. There is a scene in which the MC spots the creepy MC near the place where the film shooting is occurring but the moment she turns away and then looks for him again, he vanishes like Batman which is a really cliché scene. While I don't get disturbed by fiction but I can still feel the intensity of its supposedly disturbing or creepy scenes like in surreal fiction like Fight Club or Berserk or realistic fiction like Schindler's list.
The psychological and surreal part:
Since the characters are delusional and the MC hallucinates a lot, she imagines a version of herself who is true to her heart lot.
It has lots of those cliché scenes in which a person's subconsciousness talk to them through their mirror's reflection. Anime is guilty of not being subtle enough and this movie is no exception in certain aspects. I say this particularly because of those mirror scenes. Black Swan is very similar to this movie yet it keeps the hallucination scenes to a minimum and involves very small but intense interactions between the MC and her hallucinatory self.
There are scenes in this movie in which the MC runs from and after her hallucinatory image. After the twist is revealed, you'll realise that there is a great difference between the the nature of the said image in the two scenes. Some will say that the former is some kind of foreshadowing but its really no big deal if you think about it since it doesn't take a lot to come up with foreshadowing in one and a half hour movie. That scene, frankly speaking, sucks. Its not thrilling, not beautiful, not deep. It tries to be those things but fails and is simply meaningless. It only manages to confuse the audience slightly as it cutts of to the MC waking up on her bed. As for the latter, I can't say much without spoiling but it requires two characters to have mutually consolidating mental diseases which is highly unlikely but an entertainment piece of fiction usually requires such improbable stuff to happen. That chase scene is shown from a mentally ill person's POV who hallucinates a lot but also in a manner that doesn't make sense as if she is only seeing stuff that would make the scene look more surreal for the audience. She should've seen her hallucinatory self running directly after her like a person would logically speaking but was seeing her flying and jumping as she chased her. Another weird thing is that no one tried to stop the MC since during the chase they should be seeing the real PoV but lets assume that no one saw her even though its unlikely and dismiss it as a minor issue. Neither of the two chase scenes are particularly beautiful or intense.
Surreal scenes must look good, have some meaning and feel intense but the budget of this movie is too low and the surreal scenes aren't up to the mark.
All these scenes which attempt to show the psychology of the MC like whenever the MC is zoning off, talking to her hallucination, running because of it, throwing away her stuff in anger, they feel cheap, clichés and lack any kind of intensity.
The Plot-twist:
The plot twist is heavily foreshadowed. It is good. It requires some plot convenience or coincidences but nothing too unbelievable. The reveal isn't mind-blowing like in Fight Club or The sixth sense but its still decent nonetheless. Once the twist is revealed, the viewer will be able to understand the movie much better on rewatching since it would be possible to finally determine what the characters actually want and whether something is really happening or is all made up by a crazy mind. There would still be some ambiguity though. There are also scenes which remind me of Alfred Hitchcock in which in the movie the MC is playing a part, a psychiatrist explains the mental state of some ill person whose circumstances are in some ways similar to that of the MC of the movie. The movie managed to be slightly clever in this regard.
The atmosphere:
I highly recommend to watch this movie in dark. While the atmosphere is bleak and slightly stylised, the animation budget is slightly low. It is fluid but colors are faded and it doesn't look good enough although some people might consider it to be a part of its style. Still surreal scenes that lack thrill, have simple meaning must atleast look beautiful and mesmerizing which they did not.
Based on my review it may seem like this movie is really bad its really just average and has some good qualities.
