Ryan Reynolds woke up in a coffin in Buried, James Franco found himself between a rock and a hard place in 127 Hours, Colin Farrell held the line in Phone Booth, and now Yuto Nakajima joins their ranks as one of the improbably stuck in #Manhole. The latest film by Japanese helmer Kazuyoshi Kumakiri most closely resembles The Simpsons episode where Bart falls down the well, but updated for the social media age, and delivered with few more twists up its sleeve. Yet despite its reach toward contemporary relevance, #Manhole is a thriller that’s more swampy than satisfying, but oddly appealing in the moment.
The single location thriller tends to stand or suffer on the mechanics of its premise, and screenwriter Michitaka Okada certainly sets a much more interesting stage than the film’s title would suggest. The night before his wedding, Shusake’s office colleagues throw him a surprise party to celebrate the impending nuptials. Agreeably sozzled after many well-meaning toasts, he heads home…only to wake up in the wee hours at the wrong end of a manhole. With a bloody gash in his right thigh, getting up the ladder will be a challenge, even if it wasn’t already rusted and broken. The only tools at his disposal in the dark and cold hole are a smartphone and lighter. And if things weren’t already uncomfortable, leaky gas pipes and a mysterious white substance slowly draining into the space add to the mood — and then it starts to rain. With his GPS glitching out, the police making the bureaucracy of Ikiru look efficient, and Shusake’s ex-girlfriend Mai (Nao) the only one returning his calls, he does what any other rational person would do in this situation — he logs onto Pecker (the film’s version of Twitter) for help. Shusake quickly goes viral and soon has a legion of anonymous heroes looking to save the day.
The online space is where #Manhole endeavors to elevate itself above your standard trapped man thriller. As a method to step around the limitations of the film’s clearly defined setting, it doesn’t do much than offer the occasional cut to full-screen feeds of tweets (or would they be pecks?). And as an attempt at pointed commentary about internet justice, online mobs, and how gender roles play out on social media, it’s both trite and timid. However, as a pure thriller, Kazuyoshi crafts an effort that’s curiously engaging, even if completely preposterous. To put it bluntly — you can’t help but want to know if Shusake will get himself out of that hole, and more crucially, discover if he actually fell in or if someone might’ve put him there….
That curiosity will be sated as the film builds steam toward a couple of rug-pulling, showy third act reveals that are, frankly, absolute lunacy. Even as Shusake becomes an increasingly unreliable protagonist, Michitaka’s script doesn’t establish the narrative or thematic foundation to support the sinister and ironic direction the screenwriter ultimately takes the story. The darker edges and cynical posturing are unearned, sucking the air out of what was an otherwise harmless and disposable genre effort.
Kazuyoshi never wavers in his straight-faced approach to the material, but the film’s grand climatic swings might’ve been easier to swallow had he just nudged the cover of #Manhole open to let in a bit more self-aware humor. After all, this is a silly story about someone stuck at the bottom of a manhole, and the only thing missing from the film’s depiction of how this situation might actually unfold in real life is the embrace of its meme potential.
Director: Kazuyoshi Kumakiri
Screenplay: Michitaka Okada
Cast: Yuto Nakajima, Nao, Kento Nagayama
Producers: Tsuyoshi Matsushita, Hideki Hoshino
Cinematography: Yuta Tsukinaga
Costume design: Mari Miyamoto
Production design: Norifumi Ataka
Editing: Daisuke Imai
Music: Takuma Watanabe
Sound: Noriyoshi Yoshida
Production companies: Gaga (Japan), J Storm (Japan)
World sales: Gaga
Venue: Berlinale (Berlinale Special)
In Japanese
99 minutes
