REVIEW: ‘Sayonara, Girls’ Is A Sleepy Ode To Youth

There are a lot of interesting elements woven into Sayonara Girls by director Shun Nakagawa. The melancholy abounds as these teenagers grapple with graduating high school and what it means when the place they’re leaving behind is set to be demolished. However, despite the brief thematic potency, it loses ground in every other scene due to the script’s ambivalent inertia. Every crucial plot point comes careening at us in the third act, leaving the first two to merely fill space and set the tone. Playing with sleepy, magical realism, it never goes beyond serviceable.

Unfortunately, most of Sayonara Girls treads water. The film follows a group of high school students on the cusp of graduation. With only two days left of school, we watch as these characters ready themselves to take on the world while remaining entrenched in the high school ecosystem. There are speeches to write and a band to pick to play at the closing ceremony. Some grapple with tremendous grief while others try at a last-ditch effort to become who they want to be. Relationships strain and tether due to going to different colleges.

The most gripping storyline is also the most troubling, involving a girl, Sakuta (Tomo Nakai), whose secret admirer is a teacher. This part of her storyline frustrates, though it allows for some insightful moments for the character. Sakuta fears she’s spent her entire high school career too timid and uses the last days to try and branch out and make connections with those she’s leaving behind.

Yuumi Kawai, as the grieving Manami, is the other stand-out. Downcast, we don’t learn the full extent of her troubling past until the end, but it makes her trepidation at giving the farewell speech all the more understandable.

The other two girls, played by Rina Ono and Rina Komiyama, aren’t given as engaging plotting as the other two. However, both deliver solid performances, although their characters are forgettable. It’s a shame that so much of the development happens in a crammed third act. The film’s start is listless, as we wander between scenes simply riding the flow of the narration.  It’s a quiet film as it seeks a tone that establishes the unanswered questions left behind in high school, but its contemplation is too heavy. There are so many engaging ideas, but they’re not met with vigor in filmmaking. Instead, the direction is all too happy to follow rather than interact.

Sayonara Girls offers plenty of relatable questions about what it means to grow up. Characters ponder what life will be like for them once they move away and go to college, while others can’t believe they’ll be adults. Sakuta and Manami feel different types of loss through graduation — the loss of a person who made them feel seen and the loss of a memorial ground for a loved one.

The film tackles what it means to come to age in this type of environment and the desperate need to make those years feel substantial and integral to personal growth despite how quickly the years pass. The desire to escape the confines of high school contrasts with the want for familiar comforts.

But despite these focal points, the film isn’t gripping. The right filmmaker can shoot meditative films with a sense of urgency and profundity — look no further than this year’s Evil Does Not Exist. But Sayonara Girls is too piecemeal and made up of atmospheric shots with no substance. The film feels unfinished because of bizarre direction choices such as ground-level point of view and music video style framing. Greater editing and a firmer tone are needed to keep the plot moving, even if we’re meant to settle into the atmosphere and feel the ennui of these teenagers as they transition into a new stage of life.

Sayonara Girls has exciting elements that promise a more refined and moving final project. However, it’s hindered by a weak, meandering script and direction choices that distract from the story’s heart. In its best moments, the actresses’ natural magnetism makes the film captivating. But unfortunately, those moments aren’t consistent, leaving us with a backheavy movie that fails to grab attention right out of the gate.

Sayonara Girls screened as part of Japan Cuts 2024.