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.