This review may contain spoilers
Chaos, Youth, and the Illusion of Depth
At first, My Name Is Yours opens like a dark thriller. The first few minutes set you up to expect something psychological, maybe even disturbing, a deep dive into trauma, violence, and consequence. But the movie quickly shifts direction. It’s not a thriller at all. It’s more of a coming-of-age story disguised as something darker.
Plot**
The story follows six high school students living in a small, sleepy town on the outskirts of Osaka. Each of them is quietly wrestling with loneliness, identity, and the fear of becoming nothing.
There’s Yukari, known as En, who seems to have the “perfect” life, good grades, stable image and yet hides her own secret struggles. Kotoko, her childhood friend, who skips class often, changes boyfriends constantly, and suddenly falls in love with Narihira. Narihira, however, has feelings for En.
Jun, who is angry at her father after her mother leaves home, and begins a relationship with Io. Io, a transfer student from Tokyo, moved to Osaka after his father remarried, and he’s secretly involved in a forbidden relationship with his stepmother while also seeing Jun. Then there’s Okada, admired by many girls at school, yet he only has eyes for Kotoko.
Their boring and quiet lives take a turn when a middle-aged man is murdered in a residential neighbourhood by a high school student. This shocking event hovers over them, not as a mystery to solve, but as a mirror forcing them to confront their own suppressed emotions.
The movie is based on two short stories by Momoko Fukuda: En and The Night We Listened to The Blue Hearts, Kissed, and Said Goodbye. Maybe the books offer more depth and clarity, but in film form, it felt like too many scattered pieces that never fully connected.
I went into this movie expecting it to centre on the murder, maybe a psychological exploration of who did it and why, digging into the trauma behind such an act. Instead, it becomes a portrait of six teenagers dealing with their own “problems”, loneliness, jealousy, heartbreak only to slowly realise that their lives aren’t as tragic as they imagine.
At times, the movie felt chaotic. There was a lot of information, but it didn’t always flow smoothly. The stories overlapped in ways that felt more confusing than intentional. Instead of building toward something powerful, it sometimes felt like watching six teenagers complain about their lives.
And yet… I can see what it was trying to do.
It tries to capture the fleeting, restless energy of youth, that fragile stage between adolescence and adulthood where everything feels dramatic, urgent, and unbearable. The murder becomes symbolic. It’s less about the crime itself and more about the shock that makes them realise how thin the line is between boredom and destruction. For a moment, they’re forced to confront the fact that their frustrations, if left unchecked, could spiral into something irreversible.
The final scenes, singing, shouting, and almost chanting together, feel like a rebellious celebration of youth. A desperate attempt to hold onto that chaos before adulthood arrives with real, heavier consequences.
Still, the execution didn’t fully land for me. The cinematography had it's moments, but most times it felt like a low-budget indie trying too hard to be profound. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t revolutionary either. It felt more confusing than transformative.
Plot**
The story follows six high school students living in a small, sleepy town on the outskirts of Osaka. Each of them is quietly wrestling with loneliness, identity, and the fear of becoming nothing.
There’s Yukari, known as En, who seems to have the “perfect” life, good grades, stable image and yet hides her own secret struggles. Kotoko, her childhood friend, who skips class often, changes boyfriends constantly, and suddenly falls in love with Narihira. Narihira, however, has feelings for En.
Jun, who is angry at her father after her mother leaves home, and begins a relationship with Io. Io, a transfer student from Tokyo, moved to Osaka after his father remarried, and he’s secretly involved in a forbidden relationship with his stepmother while also seeing Jun. Then there’s Okada, admired by many girls at school, yet he only has eyes for Kotoko.
Their boring and quiet lives take a turn when a middle-aged man is murdered in a residential neighbourhood by a high school student. This shocking event hovers over them, not as a mystery to solve, but as a mirror forcing them to confront their own suppressed emotions.
The movie is based on two short stories by Momoko Fukuda: En and The Night We Listened to The Blue Hearts, Kissed, and Said Goodbye. Maybe the books offer more depth and clarity, but in film form, it felt like too many scattered pieces that never fully connected.
I went into this movie expecting it to centre on the murder, maybe a psychological exploration of who did it and why, digging into the trauma behind such an act. Instead, it becomes a portrait of six teenagers dealing with their own “problems”, loneliness, jealousy, heartbreak only to slowly realise that their lives aren’t as tragic as they imagine.
At times, the movie felt chaotic. There was a lot of information, but it didn’t always flow smoothly. The stories overlapped in ways that felt more confusing than intentional. Instead of building toward something powerful, it sometimes felt like watching six teenagers complain about their lives.
And yet… I can see what it was trying to do.
It tries to capture the fleeting, restless energy of youth, that fragile stage between adolescence and adulthood where everything feels dramatic, urgent, and unbearable. The murder becomes symbolic. It’s less about the crime itself and more about the shock that makes them realise how thin the line is between boredom and destruction. For a moment, they’re forced to confront the fact that their frustrations, if left unchecked, could spiral into something irreversible.
The final scenes, singing, shouting, and almost chanting together, feel like a rebellious celebration of youth. A desperate attempt to hold onto that chaos before adulthood arrives with real, heavier consequences.
Still, the execution didn’t fully land for me. The cinematography had it's moments, but most times it felt like a low-budget indie trying too hard to be profound. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t revolutionary either. It felt more confusing than transformative.
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