Nami
Rating: * * * * Director: Hiroshi Okuhara Running time: 111 minutes Language: Japanese Now showing

Are we all going to end up slaving 24/7? The Japanese have long led the way to an all-work, no-play future, but now the Americans, writes Martin Kettle in Guardian Unlimited, are catching up.

"When Americans say they are available 24/7, they say it with a pride and breezy confidence that it's exactly the sort of thing that you ought to be glad to hear," he concludes. "But the more often I hear that phrase, the more I think madness is afoot. To me, 24/7 is a shorthand way of describing a living hell."

By that standard, the characters of Hiroshi Okuhara's "Nami (Wave)" are in paradise. All are twentysomethings drifting through the end of summer at a resort town on the Izu Peninsula, working desultorily at undemanding jobs and falling into casual affairs. But underneath the calm lapping of days, currents are roiling with dark pasts, unexpressed desires, contemplated crimes.