Movies about impostors and grifters tend to view their roguish heroes with everything from indulgence to outright admiration, but rarely disapproval. One reason, I think, is that the movie business attracts BS artists of every stripe, from the hustlers peddling grade-Z action pics in film market booths (and getting hustled in turn by their none-too-solvent Third-World buyers) to the young first-time directors making decisions for their vastly more experienced staff — and trying desperately to hide their ignorance.
But the hustler sometimes make his buyers rich, while the green director sometimes makes an evergreen classic. In the movie business, as in many others, competence is less a given than a possibility. That is, many of us go through our lives feeling like frauds, while hoping that no one gets wise before we figure out what we're doing.
Miwa Nishikawa's take on this theme in her new film "Dear Doctor" departs brilliantly from the usual broad winking and rib poking. Not that she tut-tuts disapprovingly through her story of a fake doctor in a rural middle-of-nowhere, but she takes it seriously. Unlike the grifts that damage only bank balances and egos — phony medicine, she shows us, can kill.
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