Japan Cuts ’25: The Real You

In the future, AI will take a huge bite out of psychics’ séance business. If you have unresolved questions for your late loved ones, like emotionally stunted Sakuya Ishikawa, just download their data and ask the resulting AI construct. Of course, more input results in a better model, so Ishikawa requests the data from the close friend he never knew his mother had. Ironically, the mystery woman might (or might not) also be his tragic high school crush. Consequently, Ishikawa will have a lot to process himself in Yuya Ishii’s The Real You, which had its North American premiere at the 2025 Japan Cuts.

There was something Akiko wanted to tell Ishikawa, but he was too busy to listen. Then she died, apparently throwing herself into the swelling river one stormy night. Ishikawa tried to save her, but instead, he suffered a year-long coma. When he woke up, the government cut him a check, because unbeknownst to Ishikawa, his mother enrolled in a voluntary euthanasia program, much like that depicted in Plan 75.

Tormented by guilt and uncertainty, Ishikawa uses his savings to commission a virtual figure (VF) of his mother. It is through the company’s research that he learns of Ayaka Miyoshi. Strangely, she bears an unlikely resemblance to a high school classmate, whose misfortune indirectly led to Ishikawa’s downfall (through circumstances that Ishii teases out agonizingly slowly).

Regardless, Ishikawa invites the homeless Miyoshi to temporarily move into the apartment he shared with his mother, out of filial loyalty (and perhaps other reasons). He starts to get some kernels of truth from Akiko’s VF, but it is unclear whether he can handle the truth.

Awkwardly, The Real You consists of two thematically-distinct halves, one of which is much more compelling than the other. Ishikawa’s halting attempts to better understand his late mother are often poignant and fascinating, even though they revisit some of the terrain explored in the vastly superior Marjorie Prime.

Unfortunately, Ishii devotes equal or greater time to Ishikawa’s travails as a “real avatar,” essentially a live-streaming gig-worker, who are regularly forced to humiliate themselves and possibly even commit crimes, to satisfy the whims of their clients. Frankly, these sequences violate existing laws and any remaining remnant of common sense. They are also blatantly manipulative and cringe-inducingly didactic.

More restraint and less class-consciousness would have resulted in a much better film. It is a shame, because Sosuke Ikematsu and Ayaka Miyoshi (her character’ namesake) deliver scrupulously reserved but achingly sensitive performances. Without question, they would have been better served by a more intimate vibe and a more focused dramatic scope.

Regrettably, the results are clumsily uneven, representing a rare misfire from Ishii (who previously helmed the extraordinary Great Passage and the appealingly nostalgic Vancouver Asahi). Not strong enough to ultimately recommend, The Real You screened at this year’s Japan Cuts.