Self-reliant Mitsuko (Yoko Moriguchi) wages a quiet one-woman "war against a society where competition is the ultimate human activity," in the words of director Manda. At times Bresson-like in the minimal inflection of speech and the repetition of gesture, Unloved's rhythms are set by an ordinary life in which self-knowledge is a form of fate. Mitsuko, a city hall assistant chided by her boss for lack of ambition, catches the eye of successful high-tech executive Eiji, who carries on their courtship between cell-phone calls. Beneath his designer suits and suave self assurance, Eiji is lonely and eager to make a life with Mitsuko; she is a reluctant Cinderella, though the spike-heel slippers fit. When she takes up with easygoing Hiroshi, a younger man just barely getting by, she assumes they can happily share a life outside the fast lane, but the result is a triangular battle of wills. If, in this drama scripted by the wife-husband team of Tamami and Kunitoshi Manda, Mitsuko's contentment seems perversely narrow, her plea for individuality within a relationship speaks to a larger dream.-Mona Nagai, PFA