With a trailer that sets the film up as a blood-thumping, pulse-pounding Groundhog Day loop of bloody revenge, Penalty Loop does indeed fulfil the bare bones of this premise, with protagonist Jun (Ryuya Wakaba) trapped in a cycle of repeatedly killing the murderer of his beloved, but while simultaneously subverting every other expectation that this conceit (and the trailer) would have you assume.
Writer and director Shinji Araki handles the violence deftly, gruesomely and with frequent humour, but the killings are brief punctuation points in a glacially slow-paced film more interested in the process of grief than the nature of revenge. Araki makes acute use of stillness and negative space, often composing shots that have you checking the film isn’t paused, which allow time both to reflect on Jun’s isolation and impotent frustration and to leave the viewer as trapped in space and time as he is. Wakaba is more than capable of holding these still moments with his quietly expressive gentle demeanour; as he increasingly engages with the murderer (Yusuke Iseya), a striking and complex chemistry emerges between the two.
[Spoiler Alert!] There are no great reveals or twists to Penalty Loop, but through a lean and surprisingly straightforward story (considering its time loop premise), Araki creates a film that is funny, tender and merciful in all the ways that life often isn’t. In a film that is set up to be about revenge, the central characters and audience alike learn more about forgiveness and surrender. The story refuses to give up every secret or to make everything right, through vengeance or any other act, when being okay with things being wrong may be the only possible outcome.
