An old-fashioned coffee house serves up a dash of mystery and a great dollop of sentiment in Ayuko Tsukahara's "Cafe Funiculi Funicula." Based on a pair of best-selling novels by playwright-turned-author Toshikazu Kawaguchi, this aggressively tear-jerky paean to life, death and past regrets plays like a combination of Hirokazu Kore-eda's "After Life" and Netflix's "Midnight Diner" without the charm or subtlety of either.
At the titular cafe, customers who sit in a particular chair and order a cup of coffee from doe-eyed waitress Kazu (Kasumi Arimura) can be transported back in time to relive a past encounter they had at the shop. There are caveats attached, though — the most important being that they have to wrap things up within the time limit specified by the film's Japanese title, which translates as "Before the Coffee Gets Cold."
Anyone who overruns the clock risks taking the place of the woman who hogs the seat during opening hours, immersed in a book and oblivious to those around her, only vacating it to take the occasional toilet break. She's a ghost, apparently, but you can find similar types loitering at your local Starbucks.