The experience of watching this anti-climactic three-hour drama is unproductively depressing, and upsetting.

The film is an interminable saga full of soap-operatic plot twists involving quickly broken marriages, sexual assault, a secret porn career, terminal illness, and a quasi lesbian love affair.

A cruel yet riveting tale.

Iwai expertly shows that, while the reliance on the imaginary problematizes genuine human connection, the field of the imaginary is also necessary to be able to form any social bond whatsoever.