RIVER: A Riff on Groundhog Day Set at a Kyoto Inn

I missed out on director Junta Yamaguchi and writer Makoto Ueda‘s breakout debut Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes. Times were strange in 2020. I was just back from living in Japan full-time, and it is very possible the movie was also overshadowed stateside by Palm Springs. The only reason I found out about their follow-up River was on the recent recommendation of a colleague.

However, the beauty of these circumstances is clear. Although they’re dipping into a similar well, you don’t need to see the earlier film to appreciate what they’re doing here. It can be enjoyed on its own merits.

The trick of the opening is how everything feels like a conventional Japanese drama as they lay out the groundwork. We’re in and around a ryokan nestled beside a river in the bucolic area of Kibune. There’s familiar imagery like a man hiking through a countryside laden with snow or a young woman going through the traditional rites before entering a local shrine. Nearby, we see the guests throughout the inn as well as the backroom staff who are prepared to serve them.

There’s great relish in watching a writer put certain characters before us, and even when you don’t discern their immediate significance, we know everything will come together. We just need patience as we sit back and enjoy what the movie has to offer.

The Ground Rules

River is framed by the perspective of the young ryokan attendant Mikoto. This becomes evident when we recognize our first wrinkle: For some inexplicable reason, the surrounding area has been stuck in a 2-minute time loop. That means regardless of what they were doing, they find themselves restarting again from where they were when the phenomenon first occurred.

It also seems necessary to provide some ground rules. It becomes evident they don’t have amnesia. At first, they write off the déjà vu, but once a few of them get together and compare notes we realize they are self-aware; something peculiar is at work. They’re stuck in a time warp of some kind.

The premise could easily feel like a gimmick especially because it purportedly has a similar setup as the creators’ first movie. However, from a technological point of view, it is clever and storytelling always comes down to how well you utilize the building blocks you have at your disposal.

Mikoto was down by the river’s edge, and the movie returns to Mikoto again and again as a kind of narrative anchor to work off of each time with new and inventive iterations.

One scenario that never crossed my mind becomes increasingly comic as the ryokan staff work to take care of guests amid the time warp; it feels like a great tightrope walk fit for comedy — in two-minute increments of course. This is only emphasized by the importance Japanese culture places on quality hospitality and customer service. They must predict the needs of their guests and try and do so across time.

To say it’s a bit of an inconvenience is an understatement, but there are positives for patrons too. Rice never grows cold and two guests have been eating it nonstop again and again. It sounds like a slice of paradise to me. Meanwhile, an author uses the time to elude his impending deadline and break free from his writer’s block; ironically, the creative shackles have been ripped off at least momentarily.

However, over time even these pleasures grow tiresome. One half-naked patron, sick of being stuck in the bath, starts scurrying around shamelessly. The men who try to help herd him rejoin that he’s not the only one, they’re sick of eating rice! Later, they get into a drunken fight over their business no doubt exacerbated by their prolonged stay. 

Comedy and Sisyphus Syndrome

At its best River uses the broad ensemble comedy of Japan in ways that evoke the best ensemble pieces like Noises Off or Christopher Guest‘s work. There’s a vaudevillian-like pile on of the running gags with every performer having the capacity to take the comedic situations to their most uproarious conclusions as everything escalates.

It’s also explained to us that emotions are carried over and so everyone must try to act in moderation because they never know when the loop might be broken. It doesn’t stop a few souls from partaking in the guilty pleasure of throwing a few pieces of crockery and ripping up the lattice frame in one of the rooms.

It feels like this is a riff on Groundhog Day. And yet under such parameters, the ends are much the same. A kind of Sisyphus syndrome sets in and more than a few people seem bound to drive themselves insane even as the movie incorporates the various characters introduced in its opening prologue.

We feel the onerous nature too as an audience, enough to make us empathize. The cook has gone bezerk and passengers in a nearby taxi have been nosediving off the road. They’re spiraling and it devolves into chaos. It feels like we might be in a holding pattern.

Conclusion: River

Thankfully, there is a way out — represented by a Rip Van Winkle in a sense — a young man who was resting in one of the rooms so perhaps he can be their savior, at least before he gets ground down.

He holds the key and a subtle twist to the story as an aspiring chef with dreams of French cuisine who gets pulled into the mess alongside Mikoto and the rest. We soon recognize the time warp involves all of them whether they were the root cause of it or not.

River‘s ending is twee, but there’s something delectable about it. Because as an audience we get what we want. Lovesickness is remedied and bickering is snuffed out so everyone can join together in finding a satisfying solution.

Even 2023’s arthouse darling Evil Does Not Exist, though equally humorous and idyllic, ends with a perplexing denouement. Sometimes we just want a nice bow on a gift and River flows with a delightful geniality. What sets it apart is a swelling cumulation of attributes. It comes down to the inventive verve to tackle all the genre conventions laid out before it, matched by a quintessentially Japanese spirit. For these reasons, it makes for an easy recommendation, although I might be biased.

River is now available via VOD.