Café Ferniculi Fernicula (3 Stars)

This is a Japanese film made in 2018, based on a novel called "Before the coffee gets cold". That's also the literal translation of the original Japanese title. It was a mistake to change it.

It's a romantic drama with supernatural elements. The film's premise is so ridiculous that it sounds like a comedy, but please take my word for it, it's all totally serious.

The art student Ryosuke visits a café every day. It's not because the meals taste so good, it's because he has a crush on the waitress Kazu. The café has a secret. There's a ghost sitting at a table reading a book and drinking coffee. She's been sitting at the table for 20 years, only leaving briefly to go to the toilet. Kazu regularly refills her cup, which influences the frequency of her visits to the toilet. While the ghost is away, anyone can sit on her chair and drink a coffee. After the coffee has been poured the person can select a date in history to which he wants to return.

There are strict rules about the time travel. The person isn't allowed to leave the café. He remains in the past until he's finished his cup of coffee, but if the coffee goes cold before he's finished drinking he'll be cursed to take the ghost's place on the chair and remain forever; or until he's replaced. Another rule is that the coffee has to be poured by Kazu or another woman from her family. The ownership of the café has changed several times, but Kazu is the fifth generation of her family serving coffee.

So what's the point of travelling into the past if it's only for 10 to 15 minutes and you can't leave the room? People do it so they can meet relatives or lovers who've died. If they can remember a day when the person was in the café, they can go back in time to meet him.

The film takes place in four episodes: summer, autumn, winter and spring. The first two episodes introduce the concept of coffee-powered time travel. The third episode shows that visits to the past can't change anything. The people who are visited treat the meeting as a dream, so they don't heed any warnings that might save their lives. The fourth episode finally becomes interesting on account of its complexity. We find out that it's also possible to travel into the future. Kazu wants to travel into the past, but someone else has to pour coffee for her. Her not yet born daughter travels back from the future to pour for her. In the past Kazu meets her mother on a date when her mother should have been dead, but she's visiting from the past.

That's a lot of spoilers, but this isn't a film I can recommend. It's not a bad film in itself, but the premise is so infeasible that I find it difficult to enjoy.