Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 2021) (Patreon)

THIS REVIEW IS TOTALLY SPOILERIFIC. SORRY.

A triptych of stories that are mostly unrelated, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, as the title implies, is about the role of chance in our lives, in particular the way it complicates our ability to control our own destiny. Considering the nature of the project, and the structure of Hamaguchi's film as essentially three detachable shorts, WFF accomplished the near-impossible. Each of the three chapters is highly distinct yet equally strong.

Part one begins with a photo shoot, after which model Meiko (Kotone Furukawa) catches a ride home with her good friend Tsugumi (Hyunri). "Tsu" is regaling "Ko" with stories about her new love interest, a man she met by chance and with whom she had an amazing (but chaste) first date. In the course of listening to Tsugumi, Meiko realizes that she knows her friend's new man quite well. His name is Kazuaki (Ayumu Nakajima), and she goes to his office to confront him. The resulting showdown has the feel of a one-act play, with its emotional volleys and frequent casual revelations about the characters' shared past. 

In the concluding scene, Tsugumi and Meiko are having coffee and Kazuaki happens by the window. Tsugumi waves him inside so that Meiko can meet the mystery man. In a formal touch that strongly recalls Hong Sangsoo, Hamaguchi provides two possible scenarios for Meiko, but they both ultimately come to the same end. This chapter, with its heavy reliance on coincidence, flirts with contrivance but actually avoids pat arthouse cliche. 

While I found the second chapter disappointing, it's not because of its formal construction or articulations of chance. No, the film seems for most of its running time to be doing something exceedingly rare -- depicting a university professor as a good man -- until Hamaguchi drops the bottom out. Granted, the transgression committed by Prof. Segawa (Kiyohiko Shubikawa) is fairly minor, but it is enough to humiliate him, sending him to self-imposed exile. The story is about Sasaki (Shouma Kai), a disgruntled grad student who failed Segawa's French lit course and wants revenge. So following Segawa receiving a prestigious prize for his latest novel, Sasaki sends his older lover Nao (Katsuki Mori) to come on to Segawa -- as the scheming pair call it in English, a "honeytrap."

The resulting meeting between Nao and Segawa is almost comical in its lack of spark. Hamaguchi shows us that seducing a depressive is very difficult indeed. Nao reads an erotically charged section of Segawa's novel aloud, and instead of acting inappropriately, he offers formalist rationales for the pacing and word choice, and tells Nao that her reading voice is the loveliest he's ever heard. Even after learning that Nao has been recording their meeting, Segawa puts his annoyance aside, requesting a copy of Nao reading his book.

Throughout the encounter, Segawa is measured and gentlemanly, giving Nao encouragement as a student and as a person. Hamaguchi portrays him as the model professor. But a last-minute assurance to Nao, and a foolish error, lead to his downfall. Years later, Nao runs into Sasaki, a Gen-Z slickster who has predictably failed upward. Nao spurns him, until she realizes she's really as desperate and callow as him, and in no positing to judge.

The third and final chapter finds Hamaguchi making the most surprising and effective use of the element of chance. After attending a high school reunion and feeling out of place, Moka (Fusako Urabe) goes to catch the train home. On the escalator, she recognizes someone from her past (Aoba Kawai), and they race to meet each other. The woman, Nana, invites her over for tea, and after some awkward pleasantries, Moka confronts Nana about her present situation, and the two women's shared past.

Something quite remarkable happens at this point, and I won't spoil it, except to say that I watched this entire segment worried that Hamaguchi was setting up a last-minute twist, one that would cheapen what he'd already accomplished. He doesn't, and the result is an acutely painful look at women's isolation, and the social strictures that force many people into inescapable loneliness. A relationship organized around artifice becomes something achingly real. When the two women finally make physical contact near the end of the film, it is as though a dam has burst.