Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Drawing Closer’ on Netflix, A J-Romance Weepie About Not One But TWO Dying Teens

J-romance fans looking to get their mope-and-drip on likely will bust their thumb bones pressing play on Drawing Closer (now on Netflix), which would really like to inspire all comers to weep for weeks. Ren Nagase (of Japanese “idol group” King and Prince) co-stars with Natsuki Deguchi (of Netflix series The Makanai ), and the mega-twist on their love story is, BOTH of their characters are dying of incurable illnesses. So are you ready for a good, miserable, two-hour wallow, or are you avoiding this thing like the Xiaozhai Tiankeng sinkhole?

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The Gist: Akito (Nagase) looks down from the roof of the hospital. His options appear to be: Die a long drawn-out death, or make it quick by chucking himself off the ledge. He glances over yonder and what does he see but a young woman under a trellis, basking in impossibly glorious light particles, drawing in a large sketchpad. This is Haruna (Deguchi) and she’s positively GLOWING, and this is the first instance of all-caps in a review of a movie that deserves many such instances. Their first exchange goes like this:

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Akito: What are you drawing?

Haruna: Heaven.

Akito: Heaven?

Haruna: I’m headed there soon.

From here, I’ll fight my way through GOBS of SNOT while trying to summarize what’s happening in this movie. It will be hard but I will persevere. Worry not for me, though – worry for these characters. They’re both 17. Haruna was born with a rare disease and has six months to live. Akito has a malignant tumor on his heart and has a year to live. She’s named after the spring. He’s named after the autumn. Both are artists (get it? DRAWING Closer ?). Destiny has yin-yanged them together. No, not destiny – the goddess Lachrymosa, channeling her maudlin spirit through the screenwriters. (Is there a goddess Lachrymosa? If not, this movie has given us reason to invent her.)

But not everything about this star-crossed not-a-couple (at least not yet?) matches so neatly, like tab A tucked into slot B. No, Haruna is rather matter-of-fact about her fate, and speaks of it in impossibly calm tones; she’s vibrant and friendly and smiling at all times, a Manic Pixie Dying Girl if I ever saw one. In contrast, Akito is angsty and depressed, and keeps his illness a secret from her and his friends; he says he doesn’t want to be a burden on anyone. Akito notices that Haruna never has any visitors, and worries that she’s lonely, so he stops by the hospital every day to bring her flowers and look at her admiringly and longingly and never, ever lustily (boo, I say, BOO) through the bangs that hang ever so slightly over his eyes. Oh god, those bangs. What a dreamy emo J-boy he is!

And so we get cutesy episodes that aren’t fun at all because the tone of this movie is a dreary sopping-wet blanket over everything: Long, drawn-out scenes of Akito dithering about in the flower shop. Long, drawn-out montages of Akito and Haruna texting totes adorbs things to each other. Long, drawn-out romantic non-developments, because Akito is too much of an awkward teen to share his feelings. Akito meddles in her life and tries to reunite her with an old friend, Ayaka (Mayu Yokota), and pries into her backstory without sharing any of his. And of course, his poor little dying heart is AFLUTTER, and the irony is, it can’t HANDLE it. There’s all kinds of instances of vague longing and a flashback or two and MAJOR dramatic developments that are possibly intentionally unintentionally funny. And there’s a bit where Haruna says she’ll really really really enjoy looking down from heaven, watching her friend Akito grow old. Now, is that pain in your chest a broken heart, or just heartburn from all the wine and tacos? Probably both.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: I’ve seen a few of these things – and there are so, so many – and forgotten all of them, but managed to dredge up a title: Love Like the Falling Petals , also on Netflix, also about a dying girl and the romance that’s going to the grave with her. Rating: one million Kleenex boxes out of a possible googol Kleenex boxes.

Performance Worth Watching: Anyone who busts out laughing during the heaviest moments of this movie. Those scenes are doozies, I tell you, doozies.

Memorable Dialogue: Akito, in voiceover: “So the boy who was afraid to die met the girl who was looking forward to it.”

Sex and Skin: NONE, all caps necessary. No spoilers about how far Akito and Haruna go, but trust me, it isn’t even close to being far enough.

Our Take: What, am I going to make fun of death like a total cretin? I guess so. It’s unavoidable. I mean, the gooey triteness of Drawing Closer (please, please groan every time you read that title) pretty much demands it – at least from those of us who don’t wrap ourselves in blankies and soak the couch with buckets of our tears watching this stuff. The J-tearjerker genre seems to exist to fulfill expectations, and little else. There are no surprises in this movie. It does not deviate from the formula. You will watch it and WEEP your ass off and if you don’t you may be accused of being a heartless, cynical so-and-so.

But reader, I remain unmoved. Drawing Closer (groan) floats around on an impossible cloud. Its characters diddlefart in the coagulated peat-bogs of their blubbery EMOSHUNZ as the score plinks out sad piano tinkles gooified by syrupy strings – and yet despite the undeniable swing of death’s beheading sickle, the drama feels weightless. Akito is brooding and gormless, and Haruta is absurdly gracious and upbeat and, well, uncomplicated , just a non-character. A few featuring Akito’s worried parents and kid sister skirt realism, but they don’t ground this airheaded drippery nearly enough to make the film dramatically viable.

There’s an endless sequence here – all the sequences feel endless as this movie drones on for two hours – during which Akito has a heart episode and wakes up a week later and realizes he’ll miss his date with Haruta to watch the fireworks from her hospital room and she thinks he’s ghosting her but he DOESN’T TEXT HER BACK because he’s an idiot, and also because there’s still 75 minutes of movie left, and those 75 minutes will feel like three weeks. Solutions to simple and easy problems take eons to resolve as characters keep secrets for reasons that seem inexplicable until the final act, when we learn the secrets were poorly kept and characters knew those secrets all along and now everything is SO MUCH sadder than before and, you know, Kleenex me, please. It all strains credibility to its breaking point, but it also absolutely fits the genre. My words are ultimately moot – anyone putting on their flumpiest sweats and fuzziest slippers and firing up this movie know what they’re getting into, and boy, are they gonna get it.

Our Call: Drawing Closer (groan) pushed me away, so I say SKIP IT if you’re not among the fanbase that’s all too aware that they’ll be emotionally manipulated by silly, airheaded quasi-tragic frippery.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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