The film’s concept is strong: an episodic narrative about an insomniac who enters the Japanese business of Platonic cuddling (soine). Each of his clients offers him a unique explanations for the overwhelming feeling of alienation and lack of intimacy, from repressed feelings of Queer identity to an all-consuming work culture to the paralysis of intimacy and the trauma of a new disability. Friend brought up the 2020 documentary The Great Happiness Space about a phenomenon of host bars and the paradox of their clientele as insight into what’s going on in this movie. The film has a clever backdoor to talking about intimacy and desire in modern Japan without going down the same path as other more conventional genre films.
The dialogue of Closet is crisp, poetic, and packed with dark humor. The clients one-time or recurring appearances adds some flavor to the plot, as we swap in new perspectives or develop older ones as our protagonist Jin becomes more experienced in his role.
There are some off moments: there’s a false rape accusation that doesn’t quite fit with the mood of the rest of the film. There’s a business deal at a coffee shop that feels like it ought to be consequential, but instead it ends up amounting to nothing long term, except to demonstrate some modicum of corporate loyalty that the audience neither asked for nor required. The the final act is a bit of a mess. There’s an ill-conceived suicide plot that contains some overtly ableist ideas. Generally a pleasant romp through modern Tokyo until the last half hour when none of the threads are tied up.
