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Free admission. No advance reservations. Your seat will be assigned to you when you pick up your ticket at the box office. Seats are assigned on a first come, first served basis. The box office opens one hour before the event.
Happy Hour
Year: 2015 Country: Japan Language: Japanese with English subtitles Runtime: 317 min. Digital. Color
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s first bona fide masterpiece and one of the best films of the 21st century, Happy Hour emerged from a workshop in 2013 with non-professional actors — some of whom ended up in the final film. Proof positive of the effectiveness of Hamaguchi’s improvisational, communal working method to this point in his career, there’s never a slack moment in its runtime of just over five hours as the group of women friends at its center navigate middle-age. Indeed, as Hamaguchi elevates his recurring themes of transition and change to sociological levels he seems to sharpen the drama’s intimacy and intensity.—Senior Public Programmer Paul Malcolm
Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi. Screenwriters: Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Tadashi Nohara, Tomoyuki Takahashi. With: Sachie Tanaka, Maiko Mihara, Hazuki Kikuchi.