LINDA LINDA LINDA (2005)

From Japan, locally popular last-year-of-high-school comedy (girl BFF division) has acquired enough of a Stateside cult following over 20 years to warrant restoration/re-release.  Its straightforward story condensed into the final week of school when multiple food & cultural festivals take over from schooling & tests.  (Really, in Japan?)  We focus on a 4-girl pop/rock band that loses its vocalist shortly before a school concert and needs a replacement pronto.  Enter ‘Son,’ a South Korean exchange student with imperfect Japanese and even more imperfect pitch.  Not really a problem between the insipid/repetitive lyrics and the short vocal range of these ‘J-Pop’ faves.  Designed for group sing-a-longs &  karaoke bars, they hardly call for verbal or vocal virtuosity.  Ah, but beware of the eponymous title track!  Ear worm gold with a music hook you can’t get away from.  (A double LINDA followed by a triple.  Yikes it’s catchy!)  For non-locals, probably more interest in its depiction of Japanese high school culture and the positively weird passivity of our girl group.  Lethargic?  Sleep deprived?  Id challenged?  Do they have the energy for rock & roll, even on those Eurovision style songs, while going thru all the expected crises (all-night practice, on-and-off boyfriends, family stress, loss of the school cocoon lifestyle)?  Reticent rock & roll?  Director Nobuhiro Yamashita favors single-shots to cover scenes when possible, placing his camera as carefully distanced as a vase of flowers in a sparsely furnished room.  Even still-life ‘pillow shots’ of the school exterior in various weather conditions between scenes like something out of Yasujirô Ozu. (Though Ozu was a lot funnier about young people in many of his films, like those late family comedies with fart jokes!  Nothing that rude here.)