Rika hits on a scheme, which requires nothing more than a basic level of competence with a scanner, by which she can embezzle her clients’ money. This lack of depth grates because the film is fundamentally a morality play. But it’s less a tale of gradual, hard-won change than the flicking of a switch, and Miyazawa gets little to work with in terms of her character’s interiority.

If her transition from meek wifey (whose bluff, career-fastracked husband regards her job as little more than a diversion and expects her to leave it post haste when he is promoted to a position in Shanghai) to devious thief with a hot new boy toy and a closet full of designer clothes, is supposed to bring us some sort of satisfaction, surely she should have some register in between those two settings.

This is problematic because it assumes an empathy for Rika (Miyazawa), a drippy housewife who has returned to the workforce in a junior position at a local bank, which the character never really earns. Oscars 2023: Best International Feature Film Predictions 'Dylan & Zoey' Review: Friendship Runs Deeper Than Trauma in Talky Dramedy New Movies: Release Calendar for November 11, Plus Where to Watch the Latest Films So the film feels much longer than its 126 minutes, and relies solely on the assumption that we’ll be deeply invested in this lead character and get some vicarious thrill from seeing her throw off the restrictive shackles of her place in society and take what is not hers -in love and in material gain. But it is also a remarkably plodding telling of a familiar story, one that unfolds in so linear a fashion that it feels oddly overexplained, only ever operating on a single level, entirely without subtext or subplot. It boasts a locally well-known lead in stage and screen actress Rie Miyazawa, plus a springy, culturally and temporally relevant-feeling plot about the corrupting lure of money. “Pale Moon,” the fourth feature from director Daihachi Yoshida, is certainly more slickly made than some of the other competition titles here. And it just scooped the Audience Award, having earned at least mild praise from most critics, so really the only kink in that narrative is us, contrarians that we are. As the only Japanese film playing in competition at the Tokyo International Film Festival, expectations were high and goodwill primed to cheer the root-of-all-evil tale “ Pale Moon” as the local find of the week.

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