Introduction

Even though Ryohei Watanabe proved his talent as screenwriter and director with Shady (2012), this did not immediately result in a second feature film. Rather than delivering a new feature film, Watanabe searched to hone his directorial skills by making dramas, like Tokyo Sentimental (2016), and refine his screenwriting skills by writing screenplays for dramas like The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2016) and films like The Antique (2018). Yet, can Watanabe exploit these experiences to impress us with his second feature film?

Review

Koharu Fukura (Tao Tsuchiya) has been trying her best to support her family as best as she can, combining her job at the children’s counseling center of the city with her ‘motherly’ duty to do the household. Yet, one night, some things fall apart. Her grandfather collapses in the shower, her father Masaaki Fukura (Ryo Ishibashi) is arrested for driving while intoxicated, his bicycle shop burns down, and she accidentally finds out her boyfriend Hiromu has been cheating on her with one of her colleagues.

The same night, she saves a drunk man, a doctor called Daigo Izumisawa (Kei Tanaka), from being run over by a train. Not that much later, her friends force her to meet this rich doctor. He expresses his gratitude for saving him by buying her a fancy Cinderella-like dress and silver sparkling shoes. Not that much later, he introduces her to his daughter, Hikari Izumisawa (Coco).

The Cinderella addiction is a narrative one can only truly appreciate if one approaches it from the irresolvable tension that exists between the imaginary (i.e. appearances, acts born from unconscious fantasies) and the symbolic (i.e. subjective logic, unconscious fantasies). With this tension in mind, it is not difficult to discern that Watanabe touches upon the very superficiality that marks, in one way or another, parental as well as marital relationships, but also the unavoidable necessity of a parent to fails his child.

Yet, this tension is only truly explored by showing how the clinging to the imaginary is intrinsically linked with effacing of the subjectivity (symbolic) of the other. Watanabe does not only show how phantasmatic ideals and knowledge are often utilized by subjects to blind themselves from the Other’s subjective struggle but also how the radical attempt to believe in a familial lie is caused by a need to repress a problematic truth that cannot and should not be accepted. In this sense, The Cinderella Addiction does not only function as an exploration of how subjective fantasies efface the subjectivity of the other, but also how far subjects are willing to go to uphold these imaginary fantasies of familial happiness and harmony (Theme-note 1).

Before further analyzing how The Cinderella addiction explores these themes, it is important to underline that what makes Watanabe’s narrative so enjoyable is not so much the themes as such but the refined manner by which he has structured Koharu’s story. The Cinderella addiction is marked by a slow shift in mood – from a lighthearted fairy-tale-like romance narrative to an uncomfortable, unheimlich tale about the devastating impact of self-deception. Yet, the slow shift works so well because Watanabe, by skillfully exploiting the associative dimension of the signifier (words and images), sketches out the two logics – Koharu’s and Daigo’s subjective logic – that underpin this slow transformation. One could even argue that the thematical depth of The Cinderella addiction lies at its surface, lies solely at the level of visual repetitions and the reoccurrence of signifiers.

So how does Watanabe explore these themes of fantasmatical self-deception and blindness to subjectivity? To answer this question, we need to explore the fantasies and desires that determine Koharu as well as Daigo’s signifiers and acts.

The main fantasy that guides Koharu’s comportment is a motherly one. This fantasy is born from a traumatic event – the departure of her own mother at the age of ten and her statement of refusal: “I don’t want to be your mother anymore”. Koharu’s statement ‘I don’t want to be that kind of mother’ which signals the presence of such fantasy, is, in fact, a simple modification of her mother’s refusal of her motherhood. The presence of such fantasmatic construction about how a mother should be is also implied by the subtle violence that marks her acts at work, for example by keeping a mother from closing her sliding door by force, and by some of her statements like “Whether the child’s future is good or bad is entirely up to the mother”.

Yet, this motherly fantasy which determines her comportment towards her younger sister, Chinatsu (Anna Yamada) is soon problematized. The destruction of her father’s bicycle shop as well as the hospitalization of the grandfather has grave financial repercussions. Not only is Koharu forced to carry the financial burden by herself, but the sudden decrease in income makes it impossible for her to send her sister to an expensive private school in Tokyo. More importantly, this financial strain creates a subjective conflict within Koharu between her reality – i.e. a mother-substitute who lacks (financially) and fails – and her phantasmatic enactment of her motherly fantasy (Narra-note 1).

With this subjective conflict in mind, it is not difficult to grasp why Diago’s wealth becomes so enticing and desirable for Koharu. Is it not because her own subjective conflict finds its echo in the contrast between rich and poor that the idea of wealth attains its desirable shine? The reality of being poor becomes, in other words, unconsciously associated with the reality of motherly failure, while attaining wealth becomes linked with the possibility of fulfilling her motherly fantasy. The latter association is obviously double layered, as attaining Daigo does not only erases her financial lack, but also offers her the opportunity to become the mother-figure of his daughter Hikari.

Yet, how will Koharu respond to all Hikari’s peculiarities, her signs of regression (e.g. wetting the bed, her lies about not having any bento today, the supposed theft of her pencil-case by Wataru, the disappearance of Koharu’s wedding ring, … etc.) (Narra-note 2 (spoiler)? What will happen when is confronted with the very impossibility of fulfilling the motherly fantasy? What will she do when Hikari refuses the motherly position that Koharu tries to assume in relation to her? Can she answer her rebellion from her motherly fantasy, or will she fail to uphold it (Narra-note 3)?

Strange as it may be, Daigo’s position is also guided by a fantasy about motherhood and this fantasy is, similarly, grounded in a traumatic event. Yet, in Daigo’s case, this fantasy has forced him into a position where he cannot accept the Other’s subjectivity. He does not only refuse the questioning of the subjective logic of his daughter – he blinds himself with an ideal image of his daughter that, at the same time, radically effaces her subjectivity, but he also washes Koharu’s subjective motherly worries away by pouring his medical knowledge over them or by suffocating her parental struggles by subjecting her to his phantasmatic rules of how a perfect mother should act and be. Can Koharu find a way to rhyme her own desire – a desire for wealth or motherhood? – with Daigo’s suffocating phantasmatic demands about the ideal mother (Narra-note 4 (spoiler)? If so, at what cost?

The visual pleasure of Watanabe’s composition – a composition that beautifully balances static and dynamic moments – is function of its enticing compositional rhythm, the reliance of a kind of dynamism that gives some visual moments an artful touch, and the subtle softness and vividness of the colour- and lightning design.

This visual pleasure is enhanced by a pleasant but unsubtle play with moods. This play with moods is, as can be expected, function of the musical accompaniment. Watanabe utilizes lighthearted music to frame the disastrous events that problematized Koharu’s life and heartwarming music to frame the romantic interactions between Daigo and Koharu, moments of bonding between her and Hikari, or simply to highlight the happiness Koharu found as mother. Yet, this lighthearted romantic mood will not last.

The first indication that things are not what they seem to be is the overly sugary and ideal way by which Koharu’s romance and her attainment of motherhood are framed. The subtle change in mood is also echoed by the sudden use of threatening sounds, the subtle presence of a ‘wind’ emphasizing an irresolvable emptiness, and a sound-design that reverberates the empty spatiality of the house. Watanabe beautifully utilizes these sounds to not only accentuate the very visuals elements, e.g. the picture with a cut-out face taped on a lamp in Hikari room, the locked door in Daigo’s house, … etc., that signal that their marital happiness is not all what is seems, but also that behind the surface of familial happiness lingers an inter-subjective emptiness.    

Watanabe’s The Cinderella Addiction is a highly enjoyable narrative that explores the opposition between indulging into fantasies and the developing of inter-subjective bonds. Some might argue that Watanabe’s latest is a tad too superficial and that it has too much loose ends, yet this ‘superficiality’ is the main theme of his narrative. It is only by evoking such empty superficiality via the sound-design and loose narrative threads that Watanabe can confront us with how willing certain subjects erase their subjectivity to subject themselves to the fantasy of the Other.

Notes

Theme-note 1: This theme is made explicit by Diago’s family painting. The eerie eyes of the painting do not only echo the radical refusal of the Other’s subjectivity, but also highlights that such alienating blindness is necessary to function within such shared deceptive fantasy of family happiness and perfection.  

Narra-note 1: It is especially Koharu’s younger sister’s statement (i.e. ‘You do not need to act like my mother’) that breathes potent life into her subjective conflict.

Narra-note 2: While some spectators might feel irritated by the many loose ends concerning Hikari in the narrative, this frustration is important to highlight how irrelevant the truth becomes within the parental obsession to maintain a superficial familial happiness.

Narra-note 3: Does Hikari’s regression and other acts not imply that she is, at a certain level, driven by a desire to be treated as a princess and marked by a frustrated demand for her own prince charming?

Narra-note 4: ThatKoharu ultimately embraces and fully embodies Daigo’s phantasmatic demands about motherhood is solely function of her addiction to wealth and her desire to maintain her princess-position in Daigo’s charming rich arms. While Watanabe never makes it verbally explicit, the fact that Koharu is driven by this Cinderella fantasy is clearly highlighted by visual elements or motifs, like the repetition of the blue dress and the silver shoes.