Preview follows:


We watched White on Rice the other day, and it was pretty good. I think we'd give it 4 out of 5.

The movie may not be for everyone, but honestly, I don't know why. On Netflix, some people really seem to hate it, but it doesn't really make sense. White on Rice is a comedy, you might consider it a comedy of errors, actually.

The lead character, Jimmy, in the story is a middle-aged man (who I believe is Japanese?). He recently divorced from his wife, and moved in with his sister and brother-in-law. He shares a bunk bed with his 10 year old nephew.

Jimmy is socially awkward, denigrates himself, has no job, and seemingly has nothing going his way in life. His sister's friend comes for a visit, and he is instantly smitten. Jimmy gets set up on a date and it fails spectacularly, he pines after his sister's friend Ramona, who is in love with his co-worker. He attends school (at least Geology class) despite not actually enrolling in college. Jimmy loves dinosaurs, and probably most of all, his sister.

During the movie, anything Jimmy attempts goes woefully wrong, but it's something of an adventure. I never found myself laughing at him, mostly just the dialogue and situations. The cast really works great together. The Geology professor is top-notch for such a small role. His sister clearly cares about him, his brother-in-law clearly despises him. And his nephew seems to want to help him whenever he can.

Throughout the course of the movie, relationships develop and fall apart, between a few sets of characters, and it is refreshing for a movie to have some character development and humor that isn't over the top or completely lame.

I'm going to admit, this movie isn't perfect. It's a low budget film, but it works. (By the way, it's not atrociously low budget or anything.) Some of the jokes in the movie won't make you laugh, but others will have you snickering longer than you'd expect.

Being Japanese, there is some subtitling whenever they speak Japanese, so if you don't like that sort of thing, I guess this isn't for you. I'd say the movie is in Japanglish.

I can honestly say we decided to watch this movie because of the dinosaurs on the cover, and probably the Japanese cast. I gravitate towards any movie related to Japan. But this movie seemed different too. And when every comedy is the same, movie after movie, sometimes you need something just a little bit different, a little bit quirky, and on that front, White on Rice delivers.

You can "rent" the movie from Amazon Video On Demand here for around $3.