Review: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

By kevin on October 11, 2010 at 4:06am EDT

Based on a 2007 novel by Gabrielle Zevin which struck a chord with teens, the film version of Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac (Dareka ga Watashi ni Kiss wo Shita) is quite unique among adaptations of popular books in that its a Japan/US co-production and therefore has been contorted in various ways to fit a new setting and culture. Certain plot elements were added and others were ditched in the process, but the overarching story remains the same even if certain nuances have been lost in translation. While the book was, above all else, an exploration of identity and its relation to growing up, the film version plays more like veritable catnip for any teenage girls harboring a center-of-attention fantasy.

It’s a plot setup that’s been rehashed countless times: have a seemingly average teenage girl—preferably someone likable and non-threatening enough to be a stand-in for the female audience—suddenly thrust into a situation in which she’s surrounded by an eclectic mix of super cool, good-looking guys who universally like her and occasionally fight over her through no fault of her own. This formula has recently worked wonders for everything from Hana Yori Dango to the Twilight series, and seemingly never fails to capture the imaginations (and cash) of the target audience.

The film stars popular actress Maki Horikita as Naomi Sukuse, a student at a Tokyo international school who loses all memory of the past four years after taking a tumble down a flight of stairs. Her doctors can’t say whether those memories will ever return, but she’s eventually given a clean bill of health and is allowed to return to school. Being thrown back into a social situation which is completely foreign to her, Naomi can’t help but second-guess the person that she had been before the accident. Was she really in love with her boyfriend, a high school tennis star named Ace Zuckerman (Anton Yelchin), or should she explore her new-found feelings for Yuji (Kenichi Matsuyama), a mysterious older boy who witnessed her fall? As she reinvents her personality from the ground up and explores new avenues, such as joining a school play and quitting the yearbook committee, her usually supportive best friend and yearbook partner Mirai Hasegawa (Yuya Tegoshi) begins to voice his frustration with her new persona—all while avoiding a very important conversation he was robbed of having with her due to her recent cerebral reboot.

The amount of English dialogue in the film has probably been a bit over-estimated in the past, with initial reports claiming Maki’s dialogue was a 40/60 split between English and Japanese. In reality, there’s probably a larger disparity than that, as most of her scenes are long conversations with other Japanese characters. When English is called for, the American and Japanese cast members get dangerously close to stiffening up and making things seem uncomfortable due to the language barrier, but do a pretty fair job in spite of the obvious pitfalls of a multi-language production.

Yelchin, although a promising young actor with a string of good performances under his belt, is badly miscast as Ace. Physically, he doesn’t exactly fit the image of the jock he’s supposed to be playing and he has a naturally sincere persona that belies the dense, shallow nature of the original character. Similarly, up-and-coming actress Emma Roberts (daughter of Eric Roberts and niece of Julia) seems criminally underutilized in her role as Alice Leeds, a bisexual girl who voices support for Naomi’s recent changes and convinces her to join the school play, but seems to have no other purpose beyond that. In the book, she was a former childhood friend of Naomi’s who reconnects with the “new” Naomi after the accident, but her importance in the film is even smaller than that. As much as this was intended as a multi-cultural—and therefore internationally profitable—project, it will definitely appeal more to fans of the Japanese cast.

Ultimately, the film accomplishes everything it sets out to accomplish. The end result is an upbeat, formulaic jaunt that will appeal to a younger J-film audience, Horikita fans (an ever-expanding group, to be sure), and anyone who still enjoys a good after-school special or two. However, fans expecting something a little more substantial that fully explores the themes of the original novel should probably avoid this one altogether and save themselves a mild disappointment.