Mainstream films based on manga often fit into a template, including a convoluted plot and cartoonish performances, to replicate their bestselling source matter on the screen to please fans.
And then there is Yuki Tanada’s touching and disturbing drama “My Broken Mariko.” Based on a web comic by Waka Hirako and co-scripted by Tanada, the film ventures into extremes of emotion and action, but its storyline, for all its back-and-forth between past and present, is basically simple, and its dramatic force, elemental. Also, its two main protagonists are anything but cartoons.
Instead of being a work-for-hire project for a journeyman director like so many commercial manga adaptations, “My Broken Mariko” makes a good thematic fit with Tanada’s distinctive filmography, which features women who live on the social margins (“One Million Yen Girl”) or suddenly find their everyday world overturned (“Round Trip Heart”).