Just watched: Christmas on 24th July Avenue

With a title like this, I wondered what time was best to watch this film from 2006. At Christmas? In July? Well, since September is inbetween the two, I guessed that now was as good a time as any.

This film is a romantic comedy in which a socially inept woman gets the man of her dreams. It stars Nakatani Miki and Osawa Takao in the two lead roles and, since they starred together in Jin, this was the main reason I chose to watch this film. Also Ueno Juri appears in a minor role. I wasn’t expecting to see her and it made me realise that I miss her. While she’s been off making a year-long historical epic that doesn’t really interest me, she hasn’t done anything else. Seeing her again, even if it was only for a few short scenes, was a pleasant surprise.

The story, though, is the usual rom-com by numbers. Girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl gets boy back. This is fine, but the way she loses the boy is a bit trivial, and the way she gets him back again is also fairly mundane. Meanwhile, the comedy mostly involves Miki bumping into things or dropping things or both.

But Nakatani Miki is great in her role as the hopeless dreamer, and she and Osawa Takao do have something of a chemistry together. And if I made the film sound bad, then I’ve overdone the criticism since it has a lot of charm. It’s a nice, lightweight comedy that should entertain you as sit in a comfy armchair and digest your Christmas dinner. Because this film should definitely be seen during the festive season, not in the heat of July.

In the meantime: Merry Christmas!