Dreams for Sale

When a restaurant burns down in a commuter district near Tokyo, the married owners, Satoko and Kanya, soon bounce back via a nifty scam whereby Kanya cosies up to wealthy single women and cons them out of hard cash. Not unexpectedly, this brings with it fresh moral and emotional dilemmas, as Japanese writer-director Miwa Nishikawa flits from social comment to poignant drama and outbursts of knockabout farce. Her film lacks the sense of purpose a director like, say, Shohei Imamura might have brought to similar material, and while moments of quiet reflection and underlying humane affection for these shambling characters are undoubted plus points, the rambling, ill-focused and at times ridiculously contrived plot ultimately works against ‘Dreams for Sale’.