Ever since she exited an entrance of a playing ground in the style of the ‘98 horror film "Ring", teenage girl Sawako has been nicknamed “Sadako” and avoided by her classmates, who think that bad luck will befall anyone who just looks at her, except for a kind guy, Kazehaya, who supports her. Sawako makes friends with Yano and Yoshida, but avoids them because she is afraid they will suffer in school due to her own bad reputation, but the girls eventually tell her bad rumors should not matter. Kazehaya develops a crush on Sawako, but does not get a chance to ask her out. Finally, on New Year’s Eve, Sawako admits she loves him.
The live action film adaptation of the popular manga with the same title, "From Me to You" is a gentle and sweet little story about first love in high school between an outsider and a popular student, and it owes 90% of its appeal to the two wonderful, endearing actors, Mikako Tabe and Haruma Miura, who play their roles refreshingly relaxed. Tabe, with her really big hair due, manages to give a sort of ‘crazy look’ from below—with her eyes under her bangs—that is both cute and scary, convincing at times as outsider Sawako who is shunned by her class, though at other times this kind of seems silly, since she is never *that* different from other students, which makes this premise rather forced. The first encounter between Sawako and Kazehaya is beautiful: they meet under a blossoming cherry tree, and he picks up a heart-shaped petal on her hair, foreshadowing what will happen between them. Kazehaya is, luckily, a very intelligent, gentle and articulate teenager: in one sequence in the classroom, in front of everyone, a couple of guys jokingly announce that Kazehaya lost, and that his penalty is "having to date Sadako for a week". In every other generic teenager-film, the guy would make fun of the situation, try to get out of the situation or scorn upon the girl, but not here. Kazehaya actually stands up to the pranksters, rejects their insensitive behavior and asks them how Sawako now feels after their hurtful remark. That is a really fantastic reaction. Unfortunately, the movie loses its energy after an hour, and thus the second half is too often just an ‘empty walk’, without inspiration or some other funny sparks that would save it from a standard flow of events. The most annoying ingredients in that second half are typical movie ploys to artificially prolong the overstretched storyline—Kazehaya tries to go out with Sawako on a date, but is always hindered when someone else suddenly pops up on the scene, preventing the two to talk alone, in private. These artificial problems and artificial story flow in the second half rob the movie of its initial charm, yet it still has more than enough good parts to carry this adaptation. One of the sweetest moments is the opening scene in which Sawako’s father, a musician, abandoned his concert just to see his new born baby, and this goes full circle in the ending of the film: people need to realize what is really important to them, their feelings, and not about what society expects from them.
Grade:++
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