Midsummer's Equation
Hiroshi Nishitani
The story: The brilliant physicist Manabu Yukawa (Masaharu Fukuyama) goes to the seaside town of Harigaura to attend a seabed mining plan debate. He stays at an inn and strikes up an unlikely friendship with a little boy Kyohei (Hikaru Yamazaki), who later helps him with the suspicious death of another lodger, retired cop Tsukahara (Sansei Shiomi). A vocal opponent to the mining plan is Narumi (Anne), Kyohei’s cousin and daughter of the inn’s owners, Setsuko (Jun Fubuki) and Shigeharu Kawahata (Gin Maeda). By the end of summer, everybody’s lives would have changed irrevocably. Based on the best-selling novel of the same name by author Keigo Higashino.

The character of Manabu Yukawa, also known as detective Galileo, is a one-man pop culture cottage industry in Japan. The books by mystery writer Keigo Higashino are bestsellers and they are the basis of a hit TV series in 2007, and a second season this year. On the big screen, there was the excellent Suspect X (2008). So Midsummer’s Equation is a long-awaited follow-up film outing.
As with Suspect X, there is a central murder mystery set up. But what distinguishes the films are the fact that they are not just interested in the “how”, but the “why”.
Director Hiroshi Nishitani has once again delivered a puzzler that engages the mind and moves the heart.
Central to the stories is the coolly brilliant Yukawa (Fukuyama), whose unflappable nature and rational thinking make him great at deductive reasoning. “Truth is a map that teaches us about the world,” he says.
It also makes him something of a cold fish.
What is fun in Midsummer’s Equation is that we get to see a different side to him. He strikes up an unlikely friendship with Kyohei (a naturalistic Hakaru Yamazaki) – a boy who does not give him hives on contact – and even teaches him about the value of science through a very cool rocket project.
Incidentally, actor-singer Fukuyama was also very good acting alongside another young co-star in Hirokazu Koreeda’s family drama Like Father, Like Son (2013).
Meanwhile, the other pieces of the puzzle are put into place. What is the secret shared between mother Setsuko and daughter Narumi? What is their connection to a murder which took place in 1998? Who was the man arrested for that murder and why is there a retired cop sniffing about the place now?
Compared to Suspect X, the case here is a little less satisfying because it is not as surprising or clever.
But Midsummer’s Equation still delivers when it comes to delving into people’s motivation and the consequences of their actions. Just when the case seems all wrapped up, more revelations follow as the film teases apart the secrets and lies and anguish that have been buried within a family over the years.
And Yukawa’s friendship with young Kyohei pays off too, in a beautifully low-key scene at the end.
If you are looking for a humane murder mystery to mull over, Midsummer’s Equation could well be your answer.
(ST)