Although it came well-recommended, I had already read and disliked the author's work on the terrible series Paradise Kiss, so I was reluctant, however popular the Nana movie ended up being. As I watched it, my worst fears were realized as Paradise Kiss replayed itself in my mind: few likable characters, in this case a scant single character at the end of the movie, who is the most abused of them all and never manages to set that right; ridiculously and needlessly angst circumstances that never quite unfold believably; a miserable setting that makes you wish yourself far, far away from it instead of wanting to become a part of it; and overall too much diddling around and wasting time with useless things that don't add anything to the plot. This movie could've been an hour shorter and lost nothing.
Add to this incoherent editing that make the plot even more difficult to follow -- it's as convoluted and confusing as they get, with people doing things for no real reason, or no actual explained reason -- and some of the most prefab, manufactured music I've ever heard in a film, and you have a formula for disaster. I found myself often wondering how the crew managed to make time seem to pass so slowly, and how on earth they managed to find actors willing to flush their personalities down the toilet to portray some of the most insipid, unsympathetic characters ever to parade across the screen. To boot, most of them are so sickly thin and cardboard, both in appearance and acting, that you'll probably end up stopping the film to go get something to eat out of sheer pity for the bone-skinny actresses chosen to play the lead parts. Really healthy message to send out there, to something that will be seen by countless young girls I'm sure. Not that I'd want to be any of the characters, if I myself were a young girl. The real message of this film is that nice people finish last, and that you might as well throw away your dreams, a direct slap in the face to what you could tell it was trying to give as a message. I have no time for films with that kind of outlook.
It's two hours of your life that you'll never get back. You'd do better to spend it with a bad movie that knows it's bad, rather than one like this that apparently thinks it's the best thing to hit the screen. As things are, I can only hope never to hear "Glamorous Sky" or any of the pop machine terrors cranked out by "Trapnest" again; too much of the film is spent on Trapnest's awful concert, bringing it to a standstill for at least twenty minutes! This kind of amateurish film-making really deserves no place in formal cinema, and certainly not with its budget. It's a classic case of someone not reining in a director who decided to milk his budget for all it was worth.
Add to this incoherent editing that make the plot even more difficult to follow -- it's as convoluted and confusing as they get, with people doing things for no real reason, or no actual explained reason -- and some of the most prefab, manufactured music I've ever heard in a film, and you have a formula for disaster. I found myself often wondering how the crew managed to make time seem to pass so slowly, and how on earth they managed to find actors willing to flush their personalities down the toilet to portray some of the most insipid, unsympathetic characters ever to parade across the screen. To boot, most of them are so sickly thin and cardboard, both in appearance and acting, that you'll probably end up stopping the film to go get something to eat out of sheer pity for the bone-skinny actresses chosen to play the lead parts. Really healthy message to send out there, to something that will be seen by countless young girls I'm sure. Not that I'd want to be any of the characters, if I myself were a young girl. The real message of this film is that nice people finish last, and that you might as well throw away your dreams, a direct slap in the face to what you could tell it was trying to give as a message. I have no time for films with that kind of outlook.
It's two hours of your life that you'll never get back. You'd do better to spend it with a bad movie that knows it's bad, rather than one like this that apparently thinks it's the best thing to hit the screen. As things are, I can only hope never to hear "Glamorous Sky" or any of the pop machine terrors cranked out by "Trapnest" again; too much of the film is spent on Trapnest's awful concert, bringing it to a standstill for at least twenty minutes! This kind of amateurish film-making really deserves no place in formal cinema, and certainly not with its budget. It's a classic case of someone not reining in a director who decided to milk his budget for all it was worth.