‘I Am What I Am’: Knights in shining armor need not apply

After garnering critical acclaim as the taciturn driver to Hidetoshi Nishijima’s theater director in Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Oscar-winning drama, “Drive My Car,” the world has been waiting to see what Toko Miura would do next.

Now, she has her first starring role in Shinya Tamada’s “I Am What I Am,” the second installment in the “(Not) Heroine Movies” series produced by Nagoya Broadcasting and the Dub production company to push back against romantic drama conventions. Her new film is not up to the standard of Hamaguchi’s, but few contemporary Japanese films are. For one thing, it resorts to the sort of cliched elements “Drive My Car” scrupulously avoided, including a worried mom (Maki Sakai) comically trying to marry off Miura’s 30-year-old call center operator as quickly as possible.

The film begins with that familiar scene: Two guys in an izakaya (Japanese pub) trying to chat up the operator, Kasumi, and her bubbly co-worker with obnoxious questions about their love lives. Uncomfortable, Kasumi extricates herself and eats at a ramen shop alone.

Soon after, her mother takes her shopping, but instead of fancy stores, Kasumi ends up at an omiai (an arranged meeting for the purpose of marriage) Mom had planned without her knowledge. Rather than storming out, she talks one-on-one with the prospective groom (Kuu Izima) — and discovers he is the ramen shop chef and owner, as well as a nice guy.

Given this meet-cute, the rest of the story seems preordained, with a wedding to tie things up. Here, however, is where the film ditches that formula and becomes interesting. Kasumi has never had romantic feelings for anyone, male or female. She is, she tells her shocked new suitor, asexual.

This puts the kibosh on the rom-com story, but not on the film, which becomes about Kasumi’s quest for happiness and meaning sans a lover or marital partner.

This is a role tailor-made for Miura, who played a similarly reticent but compelling character in “Drive My Car.” Kasumi, though, is more of an ordinary type, pulled between family and social expectations and her desire for independence and self-realization.

A renewed acquaintance with Maho (Atsuko Maeda), a former middle school classmate, promises fulfillment in the latter, especially after the two women become close friends.

A retired porn star, Maho is a fellow outsider, if more rebellious against socially dictated gender roles than Kasumi. She suggests a radical rewrite of the “Cinderella” story Kasumi is preparing to perform at the day care center where she works after quitting the call center. The heck with the handsome prince, Maho says. Excited, Kasumi agrees.

Needless to say, complications await, some more overheated than others. But Maeda, a former J-pop idol who is now a versatile actor, suggests Maho’s AV past without devolving into caricature while injecting a fresh approach the series aims for but doesn’t always deliver.

Also, a cameo by Takumi Kitamura, a major star once cast as rom-com heartthrobs, brings the right, ironic touch to the climax. And to state what I hope by now is obvious about this likable genre-and-gender-bending film, he is not Kasumi’s happily-ever-after.