Some movies are like a relaxing soak in a bubble bath with your favorite rubber duck. Your soul may not soar, but when you finally emerge you feel lighter on your feet and at peace with the world. What's wrong with that? That was my feeling as I exited "My Uncle," Nobuhiro Yamashita's new comedy starring Ryuhei Matsuda as the titular uncle.

As the film begins, this part-time philosophy professor is mooching off his older brother (Kankuro Kudo) as the brother's irascible wife (Shinobu Terajima) seethes and storms.

The film's narrator is their son, Yukio (Riku Onishi), a precocious primary schooler who is assigned to write an essay about a family member and, after a bit of trial and error, hits on the afore-mentioned uncle. Not to say that Yukio is an admirer: Uncle is a tightwad, a layabout and a clod at sports. His only talent, it seems, is spouting tortured rationales for everything he does or (more usually) doesn't do.