Is Hap­py Hour Japan’s epic answer to Sex and the City?

Choos­ing films to see at a fes­ti­val can be an over­whelm­ing expe­ri­ence. With so many crammed into a lim­it­ed num­ber of days, it means you often have to be selec­tive with how you spend your time. It can seem daunt­ing, or even waste­ful to invest your valu­able hours in films with a mas­sive­ly extend­ed run­time, when mul­ti­ple films could be seen in the same dura­tion. Some­times, though, the invest­ment can pay off.

Con­sid­er, for instance, Hap­py Hour, an ambi­tious Japan­ese saga direct­ed by Ryû­suke Ham­aguchi that boasts a run­ning time of five hours and 17 min­utes. The film’s premise reads like an episode of ​‘Sex and the City’: togeth­er, four women nav­i­gate their thir­ties, and deal with the rela­tion­ships and con­flicts that come with it. There is lit­tle in the way of friv­o­li­ty when it comes to the jour­neys these women take. There are no unnec­es­sary detours for entertainment’s sake. Every moment organ­i­cal­ly devel­ops out of indi­vid­ual moti­va­tion, and often to melan­cholic end. Yet despite its length, Hap­py Hour nev­er tests patience. The leisure­ly pace is not a unnec­es­sary overindul­gence, but instead, a care­ful­ly con­struct­ed dra­ma that recog­nis­es the val­ue of time spent focus­ing on the every­day moments.

For its dia­logue-heavy sto­ry, the film col­lect­ed Best Screen­play at the 2015 Locarno Film Fes­ti­val, along with the Best Female Actor prize, award­ed col­lec­tive­ly to the four leads (Tana­ka Sachie, Kikuchi Hazu­ki, Mihara Maiko, Kawa­mu­ra Rira). There is a depth to the world cre­at­ed by Ham­aguchi and co-writer Tadashi Nohara – even minor char­ac­ters are ful­ly realised, and many events play out in what feels like real time. But with this den­si­ty comes a sub­tle­ty that ensures it nev­er becomes over­whelm­ing or tedious. Instead, Hap­py Hour is a placid, serene expe­ri­ence, where audi­ences are placed into the posi­tion of an intrigued pass­er-by, priv­i­leged to per­son­al moments that may at first appear mun­dane and ordi­nary. As seen from Hamaguchi’s per­spec­tive, they are emo­tion­al­ly rich.

The quar­tet at the heart of the film fea­tures Akari, a ded­i­cat­ed nurse with a blunt per­son­al­i­ty who is divorced from a cheat­ing hus­band and con­front­ed with a new lone­li­ness; Fumi, the reserved man­ag­er of an arts space, whose out­ward­ly per­fect mar­riage is dis­in­te­grat­ing due to a lack of any real com­mu­ni­ca­tion with her hus­band; Saku­rako, whose con­ser­v­a­tive rela­tion­ship with her hus­band (he earns the mon­ey, she tends the home) leads her to dis­sat­is­fac­tion and anx­i­ety; and Jun, the de fac­to group leader, and the plot insti­ga­tor whose rev­e­la­tion that she is try­ing to divorce her cold and inat­ten­tive hus­band leads to the frac­tur­ing of mul­ti­ple relationships.

Hap­py Hour plays like high-art tele­vi­sion, embrac­ing a new mod­el of TV pro­gram­ming that encour­ages binge watch­ing. Recent­ly, there has been an desire to embrace small screen con­tent at tra­di­tion­al film fes­ti­vals. Austin’s SXSW has long wel­comed it (episodes of Girls, UnRe­al and Mr Robot screened there in recent years), while last year, the Rot­ter­dam Film Fes­ti­val screened the entire sec­ond sea­son of Amazon’s acclaimed Transparent.

What makes Hap­py Hour more akin to these modes of epic sto­ry­telling is its nuanced and detailed elab­o­ra­tion of char­ac­ter, and the slow­ly unfold­ing rev­e­la­tion of rela­tion­ship dynam­ics. The film is defined by its effort­less abil­i­ty to fit into what could be an awk­ward space. While many moments read as a series of undi­rect­ed impro­vi­sa­tions, as a whole, the film is a care­ful­ly craft­ed, inci­dent-defined jour­ney marked by the highs and lows of four indi­vid­ual women. The film has a sen­si­tiv­i­ty, del­i­ca­cy and eye for detail that reveals a nuanced under­stand­ing of per­son­al dilem­ma, jus­ti­fy­ing every minute of its length, rather than build­ing an unnec­es­sary plot that is strain­ing against the clock.

As audi­ences con­tin­ue to cul­ti­vate a twen­ty-first-cen­tu­ry rela­tion­ship with con­tent – be it cin­e­ma or tele­vi­sion – the line that has long dis­tin­guished the two begins to blur. Hap­py Hour could have a home on the small screen, a prece­dent set by Bruno Dumot’s L’il Quin­quin which pre­miered at the 2014 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val as a fea­ture, only to then be screened as an episode-based minis­eries for French tele­vi­sion. Break­ing the film up into more digestible sec­tions, how­ev­er, may ruin what Ham­aguchi so suc­cess­ful­ly achieves.

The medi­um is one thing, but a long film should nev­er just be ran­dom­ly sliced up for the sake of con­sump­tion. Yet, there is hope that Hap­py Hour will find a post-fes­ti­val home on a stream­ing ser­vice. In today’s cli­mate where con­tent is pro­duced for extend­ed view­ings, and audi­ences are accus­tomed to extend­ed peri­ods on the couch, Net­flix, Ama­zon, or ded­i­cat­ed clas­sic and art film ser­vices like the antic­i­pat­ed Film­Struck, offer Hamaguchi’s epic its most deserv­ing chance at a wide­spread success.

Hap­py Hour screens at the Mel­bourne Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val. Find out more at miff​.com