Beautiful Sunday

Tetsuya Nakajima directs this black comedy about Sunday, that day of rest. Constructed like Grand Hotel, the film interweaves the lives of an assorted collection of oddball Tokyoites living in the same apartment building. A bored young couple's (Masatoshi Nagase and Momoko Bito) attempts at playing catch are thwarted by interruption after interruption. Finally, when their ball goes astray and dents a new Porsche, the irate owner (Matsuo Bannai) chases after them looking for blood. At the same time, a half-Japanese, half-black teenager (Reika Matsumoto) only wants to read her book, away from her spacey mom (Kyoko Endo), who is obsessed with famed film geek Masaki Kyomoto. Unfortunately a bullying gang of girls torments her, ultimately locking her in the bathroom of the cram school she attends. Other eccentrics in the apartment include an old lady (noted dancer Mamako Yoneyama) who screams every day at noon to prove that she exists, a woman obsessed with her own reflection (Noriko Nagi), and a weirdo artist who tries to seduce her married neighbor by showing him her self-portraits.