Beautiful but too simplistic, 'Evil Does Not Exist' leans into small-town, big-city tropes

Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Evil Does Not Exist” tells a complicated story with a simple narrative that, at times, betrays the multilayered power of what it’s trying to say. Which is not to diminish the film’s beautiful canvas or its technical marvel.

Perhaps I cannot divorce my personal experience from the experience of watching the film, in which the auteur tries to portray one set of characters as “good” salt-of-the-Earth types versus “bad” and “misguided” city folk.

As I’ve mentioned before, I was born and raised in the Ozarks on a farm. There is a tendency to portray this type of living — and the people there — as bucolic and positively simple, which perhaps it is for some. Let me tell you that, like everything else, reality can be more complicated.

For a filmmaker like Tokyo’s Hamaguchi, there must be a mythical and exotic quality to this place and its people that, despite his considerable skill as a filmmaker, he dare not breach.

I thought about where I lived while watching “Evil Does Not Exist,” whose story focuses on Takumi (Hitoshi Omika). He’s the local “jack of all trades” who does things like collect water from a stream for a local restaurant and chops wood. The film lingers over Takumi’s work, seeming to emphasize the grace and beauty of such simple tasks.

For me, they looked like arduous, back-breaking chores that will eventually leave this character unable to walk or take care of himself in later years. But that’s an extrapolation the film chooses to ignore. For Hamaguchi sees beauty in this uncomplicated man and his quiet life.

Takumi and his daughter Hana (Ryo Nishikawa) live in the hills outside of Mizubiki, a place embodied by Takumi and his neighbors. The locals are largely pleasant and mind their own business. (If you are from a small town, you know this is not how many people act. Your business is their business, as if decreed by law.)

Then, a corporation announces plans to build a “glamping” site near the area’s water source. Representatives from the project — Takahashi (Ryuji Kosaka) and Mayuzumi (Ayaka Shibutani) — show up for a town hall meeting in their chic urban clothes to explain why this development will be good for the community.

No one buys it; small-town folks in these situations never do. Usually, the representatives arriving from far away to make these pitches know enough for a presentation, but never enough to be persuasive. Uninformed about basic issues people in the audience are going to ask about. In this case, the concern is the placement of a septic tank that will discharge into the local stream whenever it gets too full.

Of course, what is proposed is insufficient. Even our noble, simple country folk realize this is going to be a problem. The corporate stooges leave humbled and perplexed.

The remainder of “Evil Does Not Exist” becomes about how Takahashi and Mayuzumi become taken with the local cause despite their objectives. I could never fully tell whether this was born from extreme cunning — as a deception — or misplaced naivety, with sincerity. Maybe each motivation is characterized by each performer. Either way, the third act veers into a crisis that ends up being a metaphor for how nature, and mankind, react to an external threat.

Let me offer praise for Hamaguchi, who has made some of the best films of this decade. His last work was “Drive My Car,” an extraordinary piece of moviemaking. I mention this, because I walked away from this latest film dismayed by the black-and-white nature of the character development.

More: Remarkable "Drive My Car" must be seen to be believed

If I were to give him the benefit of the doubt, I would say the characters portrayed are metaphors in a story about how good and evil are compartments to people acting out of instinct; the tendency is to survive. Any action outside that simple motivation can only lead to, well, the opposite of survival. Hence the film’s title. Evil doesn’t exist, only basic human nature.

Yet, people are not metaphors. Us country folk are motivated by things beyond a simple way of life. Money, jealousy, emotions. Just to list a few. Those money-grubbing city slickers might believe in the virtue of what they are selling. This is not the story Hamaguchi is trying to tell, but the story he does choose to tell loses its ability to engage because of the use of stereotypes. His ability to capture realism is what makes him a great storyteller.

But here, I wonder if he fell for the surface level of life outside the city in the same way those “glamping” representatives did.

Regardless, “Evil Does Not Exist” features emotional, stark performances and is expertly told. I can recommend it because it has many things to like and will make you think about other subjects. Even if it leaves you hoping for more.

Note: “Evil Does Not Exist” opens Friday, May 31 at Ragtag Cinema. I am reviewing it now because I have another review slated for next week, and was unable to catch any press screenings this week. Alas, the challenges of a part-time hobby critic. I suggest cutting this review out and sticking it on your refrigerator door as a reminder, in the event you are not already doing that with my columns.

James Owen is the Tribune’s film columnist. In real life, he is a lawyer and executive director of energy policy group Renew Missouri. A graduate of Drury University and the University of Kansas, he created Filmsnobs.com, where he co-hosts a podcast. He enjoyed an extended stint as an on-air film critic for KY3, the NBC affiliate in Springfield, and now regularly guests on Columbia radio station KFRU.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: 'Evil Does Not Exist' leans hard into small-town, big-city tropes