Miwa Nishikawa has made films about various sorts of scapegraces and con artists, but her latest, "The Long Excuse," may be her first about a certifiable jerk.
There's no other way to describe Sachio Kinugasa (Masahiro Motoki), a middle-aged celebrity novelist who pontificates on television and lords it over his subordinates, while cheating on his loyal beautician wife Natsuko (Eri Fukatsu) with a pretty young editor (Haru Kuroki).
He is romping with his lover only minutes after Natsuko leaves on a ski trip with an old school friend (Keiko Horiuchi). Then when he gets word that both women have died in a bus accident, he plays the grieving husband at the funeral without shedding a tear (though media cameras capture a few fake sobs).