‘Every Day In Kaimukī’ Review: Moody Shoegaze Vibes Still Feel A Little Undercooked [Sundance]

“I’d rather have one person dance in my car than have 100 people with the song on in the background” late-night radio DJ, Naz (Naz Kawakami), tells his friend. The young man hosts a show called “Night Drive,” on 90.1 FM Honolulu, “the show that makes you feel cool when you’re driving at night, the show where you actually are as you speed down the freeway going about your misdeeds.”

Beginning production in November 2020 as a sort of documentary/fiction hybrid, native Hawaiian filmmaker Alika Tengan’s “Every Day In Kaimukī,” is an admirable and well-intended debut, though it’s far more successful in its vibe than it is in establishing an artistic voice with command over narrative. With the weight of the world (and movie) on his shoulders, Naz’s one-note cadence and confessional dialog sometimes feel as stilted as it is brutally honest. Added to the stagnation factor is the (perhaps necessary) evil that is making a movie in pandemic times and you have a first film with a fresh feel but coarse and coasty script that clicks in place at the end but feels a tad undercooked as a full-on feature.

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Naz has made plans to move to New York City with his girlfriend Sloane (Rina White), having lived in Hawaii all his life. “Apparently it’s really hard to try and ship a cat across the country,” the pair learn, Naz frequently on the phone with the airline bickering about whatever the heck “combined weight” means. “Boys and their cats,” Sloane and her co-worker jest. Hanging out in the parking lot, skating and doing kickflips with his clique, Naz learns his friends have a betting pool going as to whether or not he’ll end up actually moving to the States, setting off a last-ditch destructive spiral of festering panic and embitterment towards the country and community that raised him.

Having always felt like a white Pacific Islander due to his appearance, despite being full-blooded and having never set foot on a larger land mass, Naz wrestles with whether or not he should be grateful for his heritage when he’s felt entrapped by it for most of his life, maintaining he “orders the least challenging food,” and will always feel like an outsider in his own home.

A laxed intensity to his demeanor, Naz has the kind of tonal register that can soothe when paired with the right atmosphere and tune, but lackadaisically comes off as cynical and lethargic in the every day. “If anybody gets COVID, we get shut down,” he informs a new DJ in training, introducing him to “the cruel and embarrassing” rituals of local music broadcast. Naz asks what kinds of music the new guy is into, but after dropping the words dreampop and ’80s, finds himself stumped, and we can tell that the seasoned radio host does not respect his would-be replacement.

The mood of the film is effectively honest, but the movie feels the miscalculated need to reinforce the living with COVID approach, much of the 80-minute runtime padded with pandemic reminders; character’s getting their temperatures checked, adjusting facemasks and reaching for hand sanitizer in just about every other scene. The movie even references this problem early on, “another victim of the pandemic” a character says. “I like the pandemic stubble,” someone else comments. While this does add to the motifs of isolation and loneliness, it’s nonetheless disruptive to the naturalistic elements of the aesthetic, reading as incredibly artificial despite the reality. The documentary hybrid approach works against the movies lack of narrative juice outside its locale. It has the focused identity concerns of a Justin Chon film without the dramatic thrust.

Bolstered by a strong, cruising the concrete and headlights jungle soundtrack, spotlighting local island musicians and artists such as Alex G, “Every Day in Kaimukī” has a very Sundance shoegaze vibe — shot in low-lighting conditions with a low budget via handheld compositions, fences and Christmas lights wrapped around much of the setting — but its overall structure doesn’t have a lot of meat on its bones and leaves much to be desired. Tengan displays talent but the creative vibrancy lays dormant, as if waiting to be unleashed across the sea. [C]

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