On a mild summer night, the elegant party of a rich company executive is slowly coming to an end. The last remaining guests linger on the terrace in order to marvel at the luxurious estate and eventually say their good-byes. When young Toyota employee Tanoura lets out a wistful sigh in admiration of Haruko’s upper arms, which are so elegant and white, the whole evening takes an unexpected turn. The garden terrace now serves as the stage for a candid, provocative battle of words, between wanted and unwanted compliments, pretensions, misunderstandings, resentments and jealousy, in which the guest’s real faces are put on display and their relationships and lives are upended.

Kenji Yamauchi’s humorous satire is an adaptation of his own theatre play Trois Grotesques which in 2015 won the coveted Kishida Drama Award, and now delights audiences in its cinematic form. Confined to a single location, the protagonists live it up with sharp dialogues, subtle irony combined with poisonous bite, all barely veiled with Japanese politesse and social conventions. The original theatre cast members reprise their roles in front of the camera, reaching the top of their form while visibly enjoying the whole scenario.