Linda Linda Linda

You’d call this ‘Rock School’ Japanese-style – it chronicles the efforts of a four-piece all-girl highschool band to get ready for the annual music competition – except for the fact that Yamashita’s slow-burn, deadpan comedy easily outstrips any such comparison. Yamashita frames the film an amateur documentary, allowing the writer-director to delineate beautifully the startled-rabbit incoherence of late adolescence, notably handling most acutely the muted rivalry shown by band-leader Kei (Kashii Yu). Bae Doona as the hesitant Japanese-speaking Korean exchange student steals the show with her, at first, touchingly awful rendition of  Blue Hearts’ eponymous ‘80s punk standard. Funny, droll, sweetly directed and note-perfect.