‘Tsundol’: Pop idol on the brink gets mental health uplift

There is a subgenre of Japanese movies that target women of a certain age, typically 30 or over. These films aren’t purely romantic dramas, though the search for Mr. Right figures in many. Rather, their main theme is self-exploration. Naoko Ogigami was once a leading purveyor of such films, beginning with her 2006 hit “Kamome Diner,” whose heroine found contentment running a Japanese-style eatery in Helsinki.

Now Mai Fukagawa has taken up this female-centered mantle with “Tsundol,” a likable if predictable drama about a woman who ticks her 29th birthday off the calendar and wonders if she still has a chance to find happiness.

Based on Akiko Oki’s autobiographical novel, the film has an unusual premise described in its lengthy Japanese title. Akiko (Fukagawa) finds herself without a job or boyfriend and only ¥100,000 in the bank. Instead of seeking temporary refuge with her parents — the default solution to this problem in Japanese films — she moves in with a 56-year-old male stranger (Arata Iura) at a friend’s introduction. The rent, she reasons, is affordable.

This setup may sound dubious, but Akiko’s new roomie, nicknamed “Sasapon” (for Sasamoto), is a complete gentleman, though he’s on the quiet and modest side. His motives for renting a spare room in his spacious house may be murky — he doesn’t look as though he needs the money — but his low-key manner with no hidden agendas puts Akiko at ease and she is soon confiding in him about matters personal and private. He responds with simple, pointed observations while keeping a discreet distance.

Once an idol-pop singer focused on success — a part of her life the film alludes to but never shows — Akiko is now in a shaky state of mental health. A panic attack causes her to freeze in the middle of a busy train station, and she voices suicidal thoughts (“I want to die”) to her friends and even the unflappable Sasapon. With this upfront honesty about its protagonist’s fragile state, “Tsundol” is a refreshing outlier in a subgenre more oriented to light entertainment than the lives of women on the psychological brink.

However, the film is not a dark case study of a breakdown. It strikes an engaging and instructive balance between an almost plotless story that reflects Akiko’s complex reality, including her troubled romantic past, and an inevitable feel-good uplift. That is, we sense early on that Akiko will emerge from her slump.

One indication: A magazine commissions her to write a personal essay about her situation and, knowing that the outcome for her real-life model was a bestselling book, how can she not finish, especially with Sasapon’s life wisdom and a little help from her two best friends (Yurina Yanagi and Ryo Matsuura)?

The relationship between Iura’s Sasapon and Fukagawa’s Akiko never feels forced or, as it develops into friendship, cloying. Iura often plays sensitive types, but he brings out his inner old man for the role, to droll effect.

Fukagawa — who once fronted Nogizaka46, one of Japan’s biggest idol groups — is persuasive as a one-time striver who never quite made the show biz grade. Her Akiko can still flash a perky smile, but she also exudes a borderline despair that hangs over her like a cloud. What a relief when it finally lifts, as it must.