All About Our House

A mild-mannered couple build their dream house but fall into a nightmare as the Titanic-sized egos of their artsy architect Yanagisawa and tradition-bound carpenter Choichiro collide. In telling this simple story, based on his own experience, Mitani Koki is less a Billy Wilderian cynic, more a Neil Simonian entertainer. But like his idol Wilder, Mitani is more interested in character than caricature, in building gags into his story than simply piling them on. His style is cuter, cleaner and squishier that is currently thought cool in Hollywood - a Farrelly brother, he is not - but he also happens to be squarely in the Hollywood screwball tradition, with its delight in craftsmanship and its disdain for dullness. The plot relies heavily on formula: minds meet as opposites attract, just as they do in all those old comedies about quarreling couples who end up tying the knot by the last reel. And as in so many male bonding movies, guys who would otherwise be at each other's throats come together for a common task. Nothing new there, either. The film does offer instructive insights on why Americans and other outlanders find the construction business in Japan all but impossible to penetrate. For cultural conservatism Choichiro and his gang make sumo wrestlers look like the latest act from the World Wrestling Federation. But though they may claim to be followers of the good old ways from the good old days, ALL ABOUT OUR HOUSE shows that they also tend, like so many other so-called "conservative" institutions in modern Japan, to prefer standardized mediocrity to individualized excellence. Karasawa Toshiaki and Tanaka Kunie work together well as oil-and-water opponents (though they have at least one rage-and-reconciliation-scene too many), while Tanaka Naoki, a member of the Cocorico comedy team, gets laughs as the good-hearted but spineless hubby. Yagi Akiko, a former Fuji TV announcer making her first screen appearance, serves as a pleasant island of sanity amidst the madness raging around her. Home Sweet Home indeed.