This Review Contains Spoilers

I went into this movie expecting a wholesome yuri romance. Granted, I haven't watched a lot of yuri (even though I've read my fair share of manga), this was the impression that I got when I looked at the poster for the movie. However, it turned out to be so different from what I thought. The premise is about a girl, Moritani, who has the power to stop time, albeit only for three minutes. With her being the wise person that she is, she uses this time to look up the skirt of another girl, Marukami. To her surprise, Marukami can move around while time is stopped. While the premise itself is somewhat interesting, it's really the thematic clarity of the show that warrants high praise from my side, especially because in a lot of the manga that I've read, I've found yuri to be all fluff and no substance. Because of this reason, this review will mostly be me talking about the themes of the movie.

The entire theme of not acting according to what others think and instead expressing your own individuality is honestly nothing new, I've seen it being conveyed very well in a lot of forms of media, including anime. However, I believe that this movie adds a somewhat unique layer of depth to this theme by making the main character, Murakami, someone who acts as a crowd pleaser who refuses to actually get up and personal with other people out of fear of rejection. She feels that, despite everything that she does for everyone, nobody is interested in the real her and blames them for it instead of her own insecurity and fear.

The other main character, Moritani, eventually spots this trait of hers by virtue of a scene in which Murakami invites Moritami to her house and shows her all the information she keeps on all here classmates- their likes, dislikes, etc- and even shows Moritani the information that she has on her. However, when Marukami shows her own information, all she can come up with is that she essentially wishes to be liked by everyone, which is why it makes sense for her to do all the steamy stuff in the classrom with Moritani. Of course, Moritani realizes that the information that Marukami has on her is not accurate: since she doesn't take the effort to show her real self to others, they don't show their real self to her too.

Through this showcase, the movie is able to push this really beautiful theme of...many things really. Conditional love? Mutual understanding? The need for relationships to not be a one way street because that only leads to harm and rejection? Whatever you want to call it.

As a side note, I would also like to praise the movie not making "lesbians" a defining factor (i.e. by adding gay tropes such as a gay awakening, "but she's a girl", etc). The relationship between our two main characters is seen as nothing more than a regular romance, the film does not lay emphasis on both of them being girls.

Honestly the visuals and the OST did leave something to be desired but it was still a really good movie with interesting ideas and pretty good execution so I think that more people should give it a try.