Mondays (4 Stars)

Wow! Does everyone in Japan work so hard? Akemi works in a small advertising agency, in a single room with five colleagues and their boss. They don't go home in the evening. They sleep on the floor or slump over their desk.

Akemi wakes up at 9:17 on Monday morning. She's surrounded by her sleeping colleagues. Gradually they wake up. Then she's approached by two of her colleagues who tell her that they're stuck in a time loop. She doesn't believe them, but they try to convince her by predicting what will happen next. The whole week passes, a day at a time. Until next Monday when she wakes up at 9:17 again, and her colleagues tell her they're stuck in a time loop. Now she believes them, and they try to persuade their other colleagues one by one. They also speculate what's causing the time loop.

This is a very low key film. There's not much action, just a lot of repetition. How often is the week repeated? Late in the film we're told it's been 70 times by the secretary, the only person who noticed the loop immediately. We don't see that many repetitions, and I wasn't counting.

I'm a sucker for time loop films. I love them. I need to watch it again, if I can find the time among all the new films on my watch list. Maybe if I get into a time loop I can watch more films.