JAPANESE SCREWBALL
WELCOME BACK, MR. McDONALD
Written and Directed by Koki Mitani
With Masahiko Nishimura, Toshiaki Karasawa
The Screen NR Subtitles 103 min
Welcome Back Mr. McDonald is flat-out hilarious. On the surface it's a screwball comedy about a live Tokyo radio drama that comes unraveled. On the next level it's about making movies, about show business, about the unlimited potential for disaster in a collaborative medium which gives sanctuary to Godzilla-sized egos. And moving along to another level, it's about contemporary Japanese society with its pressures to Westernize and its pressures to maintain tradition. You can worry about all those levels on your own time, but first, you'll just have to sit there and laugh.
A young housewife (Kyoka Suzuki) has won a contest (she was the lone entrant) with her script for an original radio play, a soapy romance called "The Woman of Destiny". The dress rehearsal goes smoothly, but shortly before airtime the lead actress (Keiko Toda) declares herself uncomfortable with her character's name and demands that it be changed. It seems a fairly harmless bit of temperament. But it's the first stone that starts the avalanche. I won't even tell you what name she settles on, or try to walk you through the frenetic plot developments that careen with the speed and unpredictability of electrons zipping off the walls of an atom. But once the harried producer (Masahiko Nishimura) has opened the door by agreeing to the name change, there's no kicking it shut again. Each change requires another, in geometric progression, until chaos reigns during the live broadcast.
This is one of the most delicious showbiz send-ups since Soapdish and Broadcast News. It may not have the character development of those classics, but it's got the freshness and the madcap pace, and it shines with both derision and affection for the medium it lampoons. It's a first film by writer-director Koki Mitani, who was the founder of an alternative theater company called The Tokyo Sunshine Boys. He adapted his own stage farce to the screen, and although the action is largely confined to the innards of a radio studio, it never feels constricted.
Screwball comedy has pretty much gone the way of the running board and the vinyl record. The modern substitute is gross-out humor, a form that puts a low premium on wit and a high value on bodily sounds and fluids. Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald harkens back to a comedy style that provoked a wonderfully satisfying laughter. Welcome back, indeed.
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