Reel-View Ratings: The Bigger The Beard, The Better The Movie

MY DARLING IS A FOREIGNER

The mostly homogenous Japanese culture has a complex attitude toward interracial marriage — one that sadly does not get explored in this shallow, awkward film. Based on a popular manga, My Darling focuses on the unlikely union of manga writer Saori and teacher Tony, an American. There are cultural misunderstandings, including protracted disputes about dish washing and laundry. The acting is flat and unconvincing. Interludes with animated callbacks to the original manga and interviews with real-life interracial couples are surprising, welcome breaks from the film itself. But little glimmers of authenticity aren’t enough to save this trainwreck.

Plays at 2:30 and 6:45 p.m. June 14 at the Movie Museum

THE FOOD GUIDE TO LOVE

The title suggests a jaunty, smart romp through romance and the culinary world; the film itself is more of a soggy slog. Food critic and womanizer Oliver meets the toxic-relationship-prone activist Bibiana. The road to their inevitable true love, however, is never easy, and the movie built around them makes it harder. Oliver is fundamentally unlikable, period. The jokes aren’t funny. The movie’s pacing deteriorates in the middle before it picks itself up in the third act. There’s a weird diversion into vegetarianism. At least the side characters are entertaining, though they can hardly be expected to pick up the slack of the two leads.

Plays at noon, 4:15 and 6 p.m. June 15 at the Movie Museum

WHEN MARNIE WAS THERE

Studio Ghibli’s final film (for now, at least) trades in ambiguity. Miserable, asthmatic Anna is sent to recuperate in a small seaside town in Hokkaido. While there, she meets the equally lonely Marnie, and the two girls become friends. Nothing else is quite as certain. Marnie may well be a ghost, a memory or a figment of Anna’s imagination, yet the two girls pine for one another, in a way that could suggest more than friendship. But everything is suggested, never insisted. No surprise that even the film’s pacing treads carefully, oh-so-slowly through this mist.

Opens June 12 at Kahala Theatre