Instant Watching: White on Rice

In her weekly column, Instant Watching, Christie Dean talks about recently produced obscure and independent films that are made available through Netflix’s Instant Watch feature.

White on Rice opens up with a Japanese b-movie sequence containing horrendous dubbing and cheesy violence. There are warriors searching around in the forest, speaking English with a twang-laden accent (one courtesy of the legendary Bruce Campbell), eventually chasing down a man and chopping off his head. After a couple minutes you figure out that this is a movie within the movie (whew), and that the main character, Jimmy, was one of the extras.  As Jimmy shows this to his family members/current roommates, you grasp an understanding of how each one—sister, brother-in-law, and nephew—relates to him. And you also get the idea that you are in for a very silly hour and a half.

The story follows Jimmy, a newly-divorced Japanese man who has embraced living in his overly-doting sister’s (Aiko) house along with her husband (Tak) and their 10 year old son Bob, with whom Jimmy shares a bunk bed. Jimmy is a lethargic part-time customer service representative who is currently more than content with mooching off of his sister’s goodwill and visiting the dinosaur museum on a regular basis. With his 40th birthday approaching, Jimmy is growing older yet shows no signs of actually being a grownup. His immaturity is already blatantly obvious by how he conducts himself and in how he speaks, and his childish tendencies are in stark contrast with his nephew’s ability to clandestinely operate his own business. Jimmy’s divorce leaves him feeling utterly unmotivated and helpless, and he is convinced that finding and marrying the perfect woman will solve his problems with getting a solid job, an apartment, and a car. Once Tak’s niece Ramona moves into Tak and Aiko’s home, Jimmy thinks he has found his dream woman, and in an effort to win Ramona’s affection, Jimmy becomes even more juvenile and neglectful than he was before.

White on Rice deals with the cost of being selfish, the importance of family, and the process of becoming a mature adult. It is an odd, fast-paced story that seemed to trip over itself at times, and there are a lot of weeks and character quirks packed into the relatively short length of 83 minutes. The switch between the use of English and Japanese, the clashing of cultures, and the silly dialogue give the film a unique feel, and the characters are believable, even though Jimmy was a bit over-the-top. As far as the story goes, I think the writers did a good job of showing that there were negative consequences for the characters who acted merely out of their own self-interest, yet reward and enrichment for those who invested time in others.