My Tomorrow, Your Yesterday

“We are not just passing by each-other”

This beautiful movie tells a marvelous tale of human relationships, bringing together themes of love, time, memory, and unavoidable separation. All this is set in very interesting spacetime dynamics, making it a unique romantic sci-fi story, in what initially seems like a normal world, but then ends up with significant twists.

Before you go and watch the movie, I have to warn you. I had the pleasure to watch the movie with my lovely girlfriend during a nice, peaceful August Saturday night, that marked the ending of what I called “her birthday week”. She ended up crying throughout it and went through a box of tissues. She’s a beautiful soul, with a pure heart. I guess we have to watch a couple of fun/action movies before we can work ourselves up to another sad romance story.   It is that kind of movie.

First of all, I should say that the movie is based on the novel of the same name by Takafumi Nanatsuki and directed by Takahiro Miki. It stars Nana Komatsu (as Emi Fukuju) and Sota Fukushi (as Minamiyama Takatoshi) both very fittingly cast. Maybe emotionally biased, but I particularly found Nana’s performance masterful. This was the first performance of hers that I saw, and she seems to identify so strongly with her character that everything appears natural to her. I learned afterward that Nana is a very promising young actress, who likes to research her characters well, before playing them. Some videos show her crying when people talk about one of her characters, strongly suggesting how much she has put herself in the shoes of the characters she played.

The fantasy part that enters the romance has to do with complicated timelines, with the main characters belonging to different “words”. I won’t go too much into this aspect, because I’m a physicist and I think there are some plot holes here. However, the main idea comes from the physics laws that allow the existence of a universe that is identical to ours except that time is inverted. Meaning that if in our universe you first draw a picture and later hang it on a wall, in the inverted timeline universe, the hanging happens first.

Now imagine the struggles as our two lovers meet in this setting, with them going in the opposite direction, injecting an unavoidable sense of an ending. Many times, in life, people go separate ways due to being in different places in life, maybe going to college, changing working places, going through depression, and so on. In the case of Emi and Takatoshi, the reason for the separation is inherited in the word they share: time will take them apart.   This analogy with our real world comes in light also in the form of the advice of another character, Shoichi Ueyama (played by Masahiro Higashide), Takatoshi’s friend. A professed experienced lover, he appears in a couple of scenes, advising Takatoshi. Even though he doesn’t know the complex timeline setting, his advice applies nevertheless, proving that in the real world we go to similar experiences, even without the timeline aspect. Sometimes we meet people at the wrong time. Sometimes the time is right, but the people aren’t. Sometimes everything is right, but we still end up walking in different directions.  

My tomorrow, your yesterday, teaches us about the importance of every moment, the importance of learning to cherish life for what it is and learning to let go while knowing that what is meant for us, will come back. It also makes us understand to view things from other people’s perspectives (particularly our significant others) because what might appear as the first moment together, might end up being the last for someone else. Therefore, it carries many important lessons while taking you through an emotional rollercoaster and I highly recommend watching it. Instead of trying to make logical sense of every moment, open up for a surrealistic journey and let it guide you, while a magical, golden, autumn-like wind is blowing lightly in your face, carrying you through space and time.

Movie Gallery

 

/*54745756836*/