About

Released the same year as his critical and commercial crossover success Drive My Car, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy is an introspective exploration of serendipity, chance, and destiny. It is an anthology film comprised of three lo-fi vignettes that are disparate in their narratives but bound together by their shared themes. Each focuses on a woman in a different social quandary: first, a forthright young model realises her ex-boyfriend has experienced a ‘magical’ connection with her best friend; second, a mature-aged student grappling with social isolation agrees to assist in a ploy to get revenge on a reticent professor; and finally, a middle-aged woman returning home for a high school reunion, suffocated by words unsaid, has a cathartic interaction with an unexpected companion. Wryly composed and adroitly attuned to the small gestures of social interplay, the stories blossom from banal interactions into complex and attentive expositions of the emotional inner worlds of their characters.

M | Sexual themes