TUNA Girl (2019)

So if you're looking for a character-intensive movie with action, look elsewhere. This slice-of-life, coming-of-age story centers on a naive, accident-prone college student working at a fish farm/research center before hitting the job market. Despite lots of complaining early on and a livestream catastrophe, she begins to fall in love with Pacific blue-fin tuna and the process of raising them. And over the course of the film I learned a lot about the challenges of raising a fish from egg to adulthood; the tensions between publicly funded and privately funded research organizations; the tuna which never sleeps during its entire life--it must move to breathe; how fish survival rates can impact the global economy and world hunger as well as the discrepancy in popularity (which translates to funding, personnel and development) between "cute" mammals like pandas and other creatures.

Even though this felt a teeny bit like a commercial/documentary (let's call it edu-drama), I enjoyed it. The FL and the backstories of the other characters felt real and true. I was actually frustrated when the movie ended because I wanted to see/know what happened next. I can imagine this as a good way to introduce suburban pre-teens with short attention spans to the ecological challenges and benefits of fish farming. Heck, who am I kidding? This is a good way to introduce anyone to fish farming, even gray-haired folks like me. It's a light-hearted movie with some moral fiber. It explores the realities (translation=hard and often unglamorous) of research and fish farming while showing the importance of owning your mistakes and looking past initial, surface appearances to learn about a person's context, motivations, strengths and weaknesses.

While I am glad I decided to watch this, I had trouble rating its individual parts.
*The music because it left no absolutely zero impression on me -- neither good nor bad.
*The acting since the movie felt like it was examining faculty and research in the raw more than a dramatization.
*The story because even though I didn't want it to be over, I couldn't really identify the "climax" or even the primary conflict (is it person vs. nature? person vs. herself? person vs. person?). The traditional ML role is incredibly understated to the point that I wasn't sure there was a ML until the final scenes.

So what's the takeaway here? this is not your standard, everyday movie fare, but it was a delightful way to pass 90 minutes of my life. I'm saddened, but not surprised, by the low MDL rating. If you're expecting a typical movie/drama with romance and the usual plot sequence, you'll be disappointed. But if you hold your expectations loosely, you'll find room to be charmed by what unfolds.

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