Happily Ever After

2009 Movie. Director: Yukihiko Tsutsumi. 115 minutes. DVD, bilingual, $22.49. Distributor: Viz Media.

Based on the popular comic strip, Happily Ever After depicts the quotidian misadventures of Yukie and Isao. An odd couple, Yukie is the timid, devoted housewife to the laconic, moody Isao. What’s worse, she has apparently married down; at least that’s what her friends keep whispering. Isao is not simply a temperamental man, but unemployed yakuza!

Though often labeled a dark comedy, Happily Ever After is anything but dark. Sure Isao is prone to overturning the dinner table, extorting money, and occasionally knocking out a stranger, but the hilarity stems from the gentle, unconditional love that binds this couple together. As the film progresses, we see how their lives have in fact molded and shaped this ultimate union.

Overtly a comedy of opposites, anyone with a funny bone will enjoy this collision of timidity and brutality, which, I should add, is wonderfully portrayed by Miki Nakatani and Hiroshi Abe. But you’re heart strings will also be tugged as you learn why this coupling is right as rain.

Funny, witty, straight to the point, Happily Ever After is why we love to laugh and analyze relationships.

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