★★★★★ OUT 5 APRIL CINEMAS
With its unhurried pacing, enveloping tranquillity, disruptive stylistic quirks and opaque ending, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s follow-up to his universally acclaimed Drive My Car (2021) is likely to be a more divisive affair. Tune in to its wavelength, though, and it mesmerises as much as it mystifies.
A tale of corporate greed, Evil Does Not Exist sees an Edenic village located a short drive from Tokyo threatened by a corporation’s plans to construct a glamping site. Takumi (Hitoshi Omika) represents the villagers’ concerns, while talent agency PRs Takahashi (Ryuji Kosaka) and Mayuzumi (Ayaka Shibutani) speak for the money-grabbing execs who can’t even be bothered to show their faces.