"Side Job" is a hard movie to digest. It deals with very depressing subject matter and with characters whose motivations and emotions aren't really clear to the audience. The movie is overall very subtle and very big changes are made nearly unrecognizable. The story is about a woman called Yuki from Iwaki, a town in Fukushima near the atomic power plant where the recent catastrophe happened. The woman commutes between Iwaki and Tokyo to work as a hostess and a call girl on weekends without anyone knowing. Although going from working as a hostess to being a call girl (which she first didnt want to do) is one of the upper mentioned big changes which happen without the movie really telling you about it. Her motivations to even work in such a business are very little explained and open for self-interpretation. Does she want to escape the depressing mindset of her hometown, with her memories of her deceased mother, her gambling addicted father living a sore lifestyle and pulling her emotionally down and her ex, who we know very little about, bugging her to get together with him again? It could also be money problems from the gambling of her father, but we don't quite know. In my opinion the first answer is the much more realistic one. She as a character is quite interesting, because we dont fully understand her and it is quite a unique experience to have characters that says things that are probably not in their mind in a movie. It gives it such a realistic touch that you don't get to really know someone. You can just imagine what this person might think and want. She uses her dubious side job as an escape path so that her ex leaves her alone but I think when she finally says "i am pathetic" she rather ment that she cant just tell him that she doesnt like him anymore, instead has to pretent to life a shamefull life when she probably rather enjoys it and finds it exciting. After all we never see her smile when she is in Iwaki but often do see her smile while she is in Tokyo doing her "shamefull" work. But still after all this why is she still living in her old hometown, instead of moving to Tokyo? Is it the connection to her parents she doesnt want to lose? Well the movie is quite open.
I am still not quite sure how I should look back on this movie. It definitely made me think and I appreciate it for that. It has its problems, especially the mindset of the town was covered rather one sided in my opinion and it didn't really go deeper beyond people being sad about losing their lost ones. It's beyond its clouded surface very shallow in themes, at least in terms of the catastrophe and I think it does put a lot of emphasis around it. So all the side stories besides Yukis were in my opinion rather lackluster, but then again the main focus of the movie is clearly Yukis story.
I am still not quite sure how I should look back on this movie. It definitely made me think and I appreciate it for that. It has its problems, especially the mindset of the town was covered rather one sided in my opinion and it didn't really go deeper beyond people being sad about losing their lost ones. It's beyond its clouded surface very shallow in themes, at least in terms of the catastrophe and I think it does put a lot of emphasis around it. So all the side stories besides Yukis were in my opinion rather lackluster, but then again the main focus of the movie is clearly Yukis story.
