‘Mondays’ Review – Not The Dull Workday You’d Think It Is [Japan Cuts 2023]

It’s difficult for a movie to create something new and exciting within the dog-eared concept of time loops without resorting to lifting from Groundhog Day, yet again, and slapping on a fresh coat of paint and calling it a day. But there’s something special about Ryo Takebayashi’s Mondays: See You “This” Week!, and it only has a little bit to do with time resetting itself. It utilizes the tropes in ways we’re used to, but is ahead of us already by the time we catch on. The film has such an admirable nature to it even if it’s a little inconsistent. It strikes a visual style at its start that it doesn’t maintain, to a slight detriment of its own tonal development, but Mondays excels in its writing–that fun, quirky tone that is established visually stays constant in its script. What it manages to accomplish there is a tireless development of the community that the characters within support and represent, which extends beyond the workplace.

The film’s opening is striking: objects without context float, gyrate, and sit within the frame while Brahms’ Lullaby (“Wiegenlied”) plays until time resets. The opening credits continue, and the images repeat again while the music starts over again. It’s a fun, punchy introduction to what will become routine for us and those trapped in the circle of time. The score rings in the film with sampled ticking sounds from clocks, keyboards (real and virtual), and other such mundane workplace equipment. Shot compositions at the start are wild and unpredictable, where a handheld vérité style can precede wide shots, frenzied closeups, and a cut to the POV of one computer’s webcam (in a fun use of wide-angle lens). But this stylistic audiovisual veneer fades fast after its arresting opening moments, giving way to a more level approach in spelling out its own offbeat spirit to the audience. It’s not as abrupt as this critique would make it sound, rather something you’d think back on and say, “hey, where’d that music go?”

Taking place within the week of Monday, October 19th, Akemi (Wan Marui) wakes up at her desk at work. She has the envious task of heading her marketing team in trying to sell the idea of an admittedly gross product: a miso flavored soda tablet. Everyone at the firm has also spent the night save their boss (Makita Sports in a high-energy performance), all sleeping at or near their desks from a past all-nighter session on a project probably just as stressful as their current assignment. A pigeon strikes the window of their floor, startling those who had not already begun the process of waking up.

The way Akemi is introduced to us presumes the fact that this is our sole protagonist, but two other coworkers in the office try to convince her that this is another reset of the same week they have been experiencing over and over again. The only way to remember they’ve experienced this is by development of a singular mnemonic device: making a bird with one’s hands and slamming them loudly on the desk to mimic the abrupt start of the reset week.

Their goal is to get every coworker on board to the fact that they are all stuck in this temporal prison, for some reason, so they can brainstorm how to break the cycle. With each conversation over multiple cycles of time, we come to learn more about these poor souls stuck in whatever cosmic joke this is supposed to be. The trick to convincing each and every person lies within their association with one another, so they must be careful in the order they confront one another about the loop. Hints of office politics reside within this device but it forms an amusing series of trials and errors ad nauseam.

A couple years ago, Junta Yamaguchi debuted his surprising one-take time travel comedy, Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes, and for many who’ve seen it, it may be at the forefront of their minds at some point during this. It’s unfair to compare them, though, since they’re two different works entirely; both just happen to use time as a catalyst for their own events. Mondays starts off with a requirement of effective communication between its occupants and the responsible usage of it flowering into the communal experience of working together on something that has grown larger than any brand or marketing campaign. All that can be said is it has something to do with a PowerPoint presentation that has taken at least a dozen tries and a manga. To divulge more would ruin the careful construction of the story’s experience, and most of all, the fun of figuring it all out.

Towards the third act, the focus shifts so naturally (again, with the strength of its writing) within this world towards a dormancy that, if continually ignored, would foster deep regret and sadness within one particular person. The secret to breaking the cycle lies somewhere within that person, which becomes more of an interpersonal mystery that multiplies the film’s dramatic effect tenfold. We end up in new territory, where developing emergent themes of mortality make this a surprisingly poignant tale in an incredibly sweet and affectionate turn. Despite all the time travel trappings we’re familiar with (and probably sick of), Takebayashi has found a way to surprise us with a new take on something old. I can only imagine that it will get better with time.

Mondays will screen at Japan Cuts courtesy of Japan Society on August 6, 2023.

Director: Ryo Takebayashi

Writer: Ryo Takebayashi and Saeri Natsuo

Rated: NR

Runtime: 83m