Final Rating: 4/5
Kenichi Ugana’s charming romantic comedy I Fell in Love with a Z-Grade Director in Brooklyn tells the story of Shina, a Japanese movie star who finds herself drifting aimlessly through her career and New York City, and Jack, a scrappy young horror director in search of an actress to play his ghostly heroine with no advanced notice or compensation. In each other they rediscover a love for movies, filmmaking, and human connection so often lost in the industry.
Neither Shina nor Jack are particularly likable. In the traditional rom-com style, they are somewhat ridiculous, oftentimes grating, and glaringly incomplete without each other. They are each other’s perfect match, at least situationally. The performances by Ui Mihara and Estevan Muñoz as Shina and Jack help sell what may seem like an unlikely romance to anyone who hasn’t met a couple quite like this one.
Anyone with any connection to people in the film industry, independent or otherwise, will recognize characters like these. They share a sense of superiority, even while championing for things traditionally considered inferior like scrappy, independent productions and cheap, genre film. Somehow they still manage to sell this story as cuter than it is irritating, and by the end, the audience along with Jack’s scrappy crew, find themselves cheering Jack and Shina on.
Mihara’s performance felt especially strong. Her character walks a fine line. She must be simultaneously cold and enthralling. She has an aura that draws you in, a kind of intangible star power. Without this, the film may have felt especially weak, but she sells it. Within a few moments on screen, she’s believable as this bored ingenue, as irresistible as she is unlikable. Her boyfriend at the start of the movie, Ren, played by Katsunari Nakagawa, should be more likable than she is. Walking together around New York City, she’s constantly complaining and never seems to take responsibility for her own feelings or even her own choices, but, still, he comes across as equally vapid and inconsiderate.
They both refer to one another as designer accessories, and maybe it’s just my feminist leanings, but it sounds a bit worse coming from him. It’s easy to root for her as she finds herself and rediscovers her love of acting through Jack’s half-baked horror script, and by the time Ren reappears, regardless of his reasonable and rational arguments, her rejection of him is ultimately a satisfying conclusion to his arc.
Production value here is lacking but diegetic. At times, the editing and cinematography are a bit inelegant, but, with the film itself showcasing shoestring-budget productions made without permits or even proper equipment, it all feels rather fitting. You can’t really find it in yourself to criticize them for it while cheering the crew on in the narrative itself. The writing is an appropriate step above the production value, helping it all feel relatively real if poorly rendered.
While there isn’t much here to chew on, there doesn’t need to be. I Fell in Love with a Z-Grade Director in Brooklyn is exactly what it says on the tin. Cute, light-hearted, and well-paced, the viewer is happily along for the ride with these two as they find the happy ending we all saw coming from the start.
I Fell in Love With A Z-Grade Director in Brooklyn was seen during the 2025 Fantasia Film Festival. Thank you to the festival for the screener.
