‘Let’s Meet at Angie’s Bar’: A granny like none other

At age 91, Mitsuko Kusabue may not be the oldest professional actor to ever appear in a film — that honor belongs to Norman Lloyd, whose last screen role at age 99 was in Judd Apatow’s 2015 comedy “Trainwreck” — but she charges up the screen as the star of the whimsical, lighter-than-air comedy “Let’s Meet at Angie’s Bar.”

Directed by first-time feature director Yurugu Matsumoto, who worked as an assistant director for Nobuhiko Obayashi, and scripted by Daisuke Tengan, whose credits include scripts for his father, Shohei Imamura, the film is a Kusabue vehicle that showcases her still formidable charisma and comedic skills.

Born in 1933, the actor was a favorite of Japanese cinema’s golden age auteurs Mikio Naruse (“Scattered Clouds,” 1967) and Kon Ichikawa (“The Inugami Family,” 1976) and has enjoyed a long, flourishing career on both the big and small screen playing a variety of roles, often with a comic slant.

In “Let’s Meet at Angie’s Bar,” she portrays the mysterious eponymous character, who arrives one day at a ramshackle building in a small town. Spotting a “for lease” sign, she peers inside and sees a snake slithering. She decides on the spot to turn the place into a bar.

A flustered real estate agent tries to discourage her, saying that the building has been the site of “accidents,” but when Angie plunks down a wad of yen notes and the grinning silver-fox landlord (Akira Terao) says he likes her “vibes,” the deal is done. Angie quickly realizes, however, that she cannot do the job alone and engages two homeless guys — one a rough-and-ready former carpenter and the other an eccentric amateur botanist — to help her fix up the joint.

Meanwhile, Mitsuyo (Yoko Matsuda), the chipper widowed proprietor of the beauty parlor across the street, worries about her teenage son Rintaro (Yuzu Aoki). A good-looking, if gloomy kid, he spends his time watching a taciturn childhood pal and his feisty sister practice pro wrestling. While the friend wants to be a sculptor and the sister wants to make her wrestling debut, Rintaro wants something he keeps a deep, dark secret.

There are bumps along the way to the bar’s grand opening, including a slapstick fracas with two would-be exorcists who want to rid the place of its ghosts over Angie’s dismissive objections. But for all its dramatics, serious or not, the film perks and bubbles along without much of a plot until sinister men arrive in town and monitor Angie’s every move.

Though stylishly and immaculately dressed and coiffed, Angie is a wily, gritty type who dispenses hard-won wisdom (“Let go of the past or it may kill you”). And while not divulging much about her own past until the comically chaotic climax, she hints at her fugitive status and criminal activities. A typical Japanese movie granny she is not.

Kusabue plays this character with an infectious energy and verve. Angie may be a thin conceit and the film itself is a trifle with retread gags and formulaic drama, but Kusabue makes it all watchable.

And the bar itself, which Angie dubs Nobody’s Fool, transforms from a trash heap to a cozy, welcoming retreat where she expertly mixes drinks and smilingly dishes out scrumptious-looking curry — the house specialty.

Watching her at work, I thought that though she may be a fantasy, Angie — and Kusabue — were my new gurus for successful aging.