🎬 Movie Review: My Teacher (先生!...好きになってもいいですか?)

The title's literal translation would be: "Teacher! Is it okay for me to love you?" and that's exactly what the young protagonist of this movie asks her history teacher while confessing her love.

I stumbled into this 2017 Japanese movie thanks to…Youtube suggestions program! I saw a clip, had my attention caught, said “why not?” and decided to give it a try out of curiosity (and, in complete honesty, alternatives…why during summertime there are just a handful of movies worth watching?). 
Japanese movies sometimes tend to be extremely dramatic and difficult to bear with until the end, but this one is actually very funny from the beginning and arise the issue of love between people with a huge age gap; in this case with the "aggravation" of one being a 26 years old teacher and the other a 17 years old student.

Hibiki Shimada is a sweet and quiet 17 years old high schooler, who’s slowly but inevitably falling for her world history teacher, Professor Ito.                                                                 

Mr. Ito is anything but charming: loner, inflexible and ‘know-it-all’ kind of person, he doesn’t care about being popular or appreciated by his students...even so, he feels protective over Shimada, but doesn’t want to encourage her feelings towards him.

Hibiki’s two best friends Megumi Chigusa and Kosuke Kawai have as well a crush for two teachers, so the three of them spend time giving each other love advice and day-dreaming.  
After a few occasions where Mr. Ito helped Hibiki, she decides to confess her love and after being told that it’s not corresponded, she proposes Mr. Ito a ‘bet’: if she scores more than 90 points at his midterm exam, she’ll continue loving him, even if he doesn’t.

Time goes by and, during a school festival, Hibiki spots Mr.Ito on the rooftop. She still loves him and tells him that one more time. Mr. Ito has always felt something for Hibiki and so the two share a kiss but are photographed by another student, putting Mr. Ito in a very difficult position with the school board...

My Opinion👍👎

The story left me torn: it’s clear that both Hibiki and Mr. Ito are sincerely in love with each other, but they still remain teacher and student (minor, I might add). Truth be told, Japan is renowned for being pudic about PDAs, so here the highest accomplishment for a couple is portrayed to be holding hands...

One of the things I was positively pleased about has been the representations of all the various types of teenagers love, with Chigusa jumping in no time from a crush to another, while  Kawai makes no mystery he’s into the art teacher.

Moral issue aside, I loved this movie, I might dare say it’s one of the best I’ve watched this year: it has a fantastic scenography and screenplay, with Hibiki’s rooftop love confession being one of the most moving and emotional I’ve ever heard, and even if it’s almost 2 hours long, not a single minute is boring or unnecessary.

MOVIES/BOOKS/TV SERIES

"Notes on a Scandal" by Richard Eyre, with Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench.

"Gabriel's Inferno" by Sylvain Reynard

"Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov

"Teacher's Pet" - Bull s.1/ep.11

Rating: 5/5

Ph: forums.soompi.com