‘I Am Makimoto’: Sadawo Abe isn't what this ‘Still Life’ remake needed

Some actors are an acquired taste. There are clearly many people out there who appreciate the talents of Sadawo Abe, but I’ve always found him utterly resistible, like a precocious child actor trapped in the body of a middle-aged man.

When Kazuya Shiraishi cast him as a serial killer in “Lesson in Murder” earlier this year, I thought, “Finally, someone gets it.” Too bad the film itself was an unintentionally camp misfire; I guess you can’t have everything.

Abe is the main attraction in “I Am Makimoto,” his third outing with director Nobuo Mizuta, following “Maiko haaaan!!!” (2007) and “The Apology King” (2013). While those were straightforwardly comic affairs, the duo attempts something more serious in their remake of Uberto Pasolini’s British drama “Still Life” (2013).

The original was a sweet, sentimental movie that charmed arthouse audiences and boasted a superb lead turn by Eddie Marsan. Mizuta’s version (from a script by Yutaka Kuramochi) keeps the basic story but gets the tone all wrong, hurtling from forced mirth to mawkishness without ever replicating Pasolini’s quiet humanism.

Abe plays So Makimoto, a local government functionary assigned with locating next of kin for people who have died alone. He does this with obsessive dedication: His office desk is surrounded by unclaimed burial urns, while he often arranges funerals where he’s the only mourner — paid for out of his own pocket.

Makimoto seems more comfortable dealing with the dead than the living. He lives alone in a spartan apartment, with only a goldfish for company. His interactions with other people are unfailingly awkward, hampered by what armchair psychologists may be tempted to diagnose as high-functioning autism.

Sadly, his devotion to the job doesn’t mean much to a new boss looking to make efficiency savings, who summarily informs Makimoto that his latest case will be the last. It’s also one that hits uncomfortably close to home: The deceased lived directly opposite his apartment, though left little behind except for a family photo album and a history of broken relationships.

Makimoto sets out to find someone — anyone — who will attend the dead man’s funeral. The journey takes him to some picturesque locations around Yamagata Prefecture in northeastern Japan, an area notorious for its thick dialect, though the characters all sound like they’ve stepped straight off the train from Tokyo.

Perhaps in an attempt to mollify viewers expecting a repeat of his previous Abe collaborations, Mizuta brings a jaunty atmosphere to the early scenes while indulging some over-the-top performances from the supporting cast.

However, as the laughs dry up, the film doesn’t have much to fall back on. Marsan’s dialed-down performance was what made “Still Life” so effective: He played the character as the kind of mild-mannered figure most people would instantly forget.

Masato Sakai circa “The Samurai That Night” (2012) would have been a natural choice for the role, but Abe doesn’t do restraint: his Makimoto is a tightly wound eccentric who seems constantly on the verge of exploding. In a story that hinges on understated pathos, he’s a liability.

He’s also far too memorable for the ironic twist of fate at the film’s conclusion to work. The final scene in “Still Life” was genuinely moving. Here, it just feels gratuitous — and the movie as a whole, badly misjudged.