Adapted from the 2012 novel of the same name by Haruko Hojo, Rewrite is a genre-bending story about choice, destiny, consequence, and ownership. It begins as a more conventional teen romance story (with obvious sci-fi leanings) before segueing into a more comedic mystery and eventually settling on a more dramatic, emotional tone around love and destiny by its conclusion. These tonal shifts mostly succeed, though they become less seamless as the plot gains complexity.
 

Due to these shifts, interestingly and positively, the narrative completely sidesteps the predictable route by the time the credits roll. As the film examined the idea of choices and their reverberations, Matsui does not betray these themes and points for an overly fantastical or conventional ending. Though maybe this would have been satisfying for many, the film is stronger for not falling into this trap, which, really, would have raised far more questions about Miyuki than anything else.

 

However, the film began to feel convoluted and bogged down the further into the mystery we went. Matsui and screenwriter Makoto Ueda - a veteran of time travel films including Summer Time Machine Blues, Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes, and River - opted for ambiguity and dreamy logic rather than hard and fast rules regarding the time jumps, which wasn’t always successful. Plus, the diverging plots and time jumps really began to eventually weigh things down before we reached the drawn-out finale. Emotion over logic can be powerful, but it felt less so here.

 

Elaiza Ikeda is highly affable as the introspective yet determined Miyuki. As, essentially, the author of her own story, her narrative is compelling and has real depth. Believing herself to be the only one affected by a time-travelling hunk, her journey is equal parts melancholic and healing, the latter coming to the fore the more the story unfolds. Ikeda handles the jumps in time and emotion with confidence and anchors the story extremely well. Whilst Adachi may not have been the most charismatic of romantic leads, his chemistry with Ikeda was solid, and their initial farewell scene was beautiful and surprisingly heartwrenching. The performances overall skewed more positive, though some were better than others.
 

Alongside some solid performances and a mixed-to-positive narrative, Daiki Shiotani’s delicate cinematography really made Rewrite shine visually and helped further tell the story of Miyuki, especially in how she was shot and framed. Yūta Mori’s score also provided a strong, atmospheric backbone to the story.

 

Rewrite had real potential to be a poignant and highly affecting sci-fi drama, and whilst it had many positives, it just fell short of its lofty potential. Abandoning the emotional heartbeat of the story in favour of complexity ultimately was detrimental to the story as a whole; however, there was more than enough throughout to ensure Rewrite remained engaging and compelling.