Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
Forty-year-old spinster Yui Katakura leads a frugal life, working non-stop, saving all the time for her retirement. When the doctor says she might have only one year to live, she isn’t sure what she should do with all her money and remainder days. And then along comes Sena, a handsome, pink-haired young man who randomly asks Yui if she can lend him money to pay his dad’s hospital bill. Yui agrees on a whim, dazzled by his pretty face, and then asks Sena to repay her with his services.
Directed by Hiroki Kazama (Mobuko no Koi, Cherry Magic), ‘One Year to Live, Buy a Man’ stars Kô Shibasaki as protagonist Yui, a stern-faced, disciplined worker bee diagnosed with cancer, while Eiji Akaso portrays Sena, the young bar host she becomes fascinated by. Think Pretty Woman in reverse, except Sena isn’t a hooker, and Yui is simply a regular middle-class woman with plenty of cash to spare, thanks to her life-threatening diagnosis.
Naomi Nishida plays Mizuho Maruyama, Yui’s co-worker and perhaps her only friend at work. Their mundane lunchtime conversations are oddly amusing, especially when Mizuho admits to spending a small fortune on her favourite ‘idol’, a cute young man she’s a huge fan of. Yui comically takes inspiration from her friend and considers spending money on Sena in much the same way fangirls splurge on merchandise of their celebrity crushes or role models.
For most of One Year to Live, Buy a Man‘s 1-hour-49-minute runtime, Yui and Sena’s relationship is strictly transactional: Sena owes the older woman a lot of money, so he repays her with his body and time. Obviously, the ‘mere exposure effect’ kicks in as the two spend more time together. So even though Sena sometimes calls Yui a ‘crazy old hag’ during their conversations, he gradually warms up to her cold, no-nonsense personality and genuinely worries about her cancer diagnosis. Yui begins enjoying life for the first time and learns a thing or two about family and relationships, despite having spent decades keeping emotional entanglements at arm’s length.
But don’t mistake ‘One Year to Live, Buy a Man’ for a conventional romantic drama. Instead, it’s a subtle indictment of Japan’s loneliness epidemic and crushing work culture, where people are reduced to living like machines: preparing an entire week’s lunches over the weekend, slogging through the workweek, and spending whatever little free time remains on household chores and preparations for yet another week of work.
Yui has spent 40 years of her life saving for a comfortable retirement, only to realize that all her sacrifices might have been for nothing. The carefree Sena, meanwhile, takes up a job as a host simply because he doesn’t know what else to do and someone suggests he’d be good at it. The two represent opposite extremes: one has money but has never made time to enjoy it, while the other might have all the time in the world to have fun but is perpetually broke.
Why someone as attractive and soft-hearted as Eiji Akaso’s Sena doesn’t have an actual girlfriend remains a big mystery throughout ‘One Year to Live, Buy a Man’. And quite frankly, the onscreen chemistry between Eiji Akaso and Kô Shibasaki is awkwardly tepid. Their bond works better as that of a businesslike older woman paying for a young man’s company than as the romantic relationship the second half of the story nudges them towards.
Kô Shibasaki is terrific as the teacher-like, serious Yui, representing anyone simply going through the motions of life like the living dead. The only things that seem to bring out her human side are the meals she cooks for herself and the quilting she does in memory of her deceased mother. Here, the writers also slip in a brief glimpse of her strained family ties, offering some insight into her deliberate avoidance of deeper human connections. It’s only after her cancer diagnosis that she allows herself to live a little, so watching her melt with joy on treating herself to a fresh, hot meal in a nice restaurant is a treat in itself.
In the end, ‘One Year to Live, Buy a Man’ takes an unexpected turn and perhaps resolves Yui and Sena’s undefined relationship a little too conveniently. But overall, it’s an interesting, quietly moving look at how chance encounters and impulsive decisions can change the course of our lives. And I think the bigger message here is: it is okay indulge ourselves once in a while, rather than spending an entire lifetime preparing for a future that may never come.
Watch One Year to Live, Buy a Man on Netflix.
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