Thoughts about the movie

One of the biggest problems I had with the film adaptation was the casting. The actress who played Naoko was especially disappointing to me. When I read the novel, I imagined Naoko as someone pure, fragile, and almost otherworldly. In the film, however, she did not give that impression at all. Her expression often felt empty in a way that made her seem less like a delicate young woman and more like someone who had already been worn down by many years of suffering. This completely changed the feeling of her character for me. 

Midori was also very different from how I pictured her in the book. In the novel, she has a playful charm, but the film did not really capture that side of her. Instead, she came across as too elegant and fashionable. Details like her sunglasses and the way she spoke made her feel much more polished than the Midori Murakami described. The only character I thought fit my impression fairly closely was Kizuki. Even though he dies at the very beginning, his appearance and presence matched the image I had while reading. The car suicide scene also conveyed a real sense of struggle.

Another weakness of the film is the way it handles the other characters and the flow of the story. I understand that a movie has limited time and cannot develop every side character as fully as a novel can. However, some characters, such as Storm Trooper, appear so briefly and strangely that their scenes may feel confusing, especially for audiences who have not read the book. More broadly, the entire film often feels like a sequence of disconnected images rather than a continuous story. At times, the transition from one scene to the next feels abrupt and almost random. For example, one moment Storm Trooper is by Toru's bed, and the next moment Toru is in a bar talking with Nagasawa about girls. Because of this, the film loses the emotional and narrative continuity that makes the novel powerful. In my opinion, these details were handled poorly, and in some cases it might actually have been better to leave them out rather than include them in such an incomplete way.

- Wendy