As a fan of Japanese director/writer Hirokazu Koreeda, I expected to love this story of a family scraping by with light fingers, and I did! Jack liked it, too. This is the fourth of Koreeda's AKA Kore-eda (last blogged for
I Wish) thirteen features that I've seen and, like the others, there's more to the characters than meets the eye.
The only actor I've seen before is Kirin Kiki (in these pages for
Still Walking) as Grandma. The man/father called Osamu is played by Lily Franky and the woman/mother is portrayed with equal parts sugar and spice by Sakura Andô. Don't be fooled by the headband--Shota, played by Jyo Kairi, is a boy. The young woman living with them, Aki, is Mayu Matsuoka and Yuri is played by Miyu Sasaki. The relationships are a bit unclear but it all gets sorted out in the end.
This came to my radar because of its
nominations and not because I saw a trailer. A few months ago I joined
Film Independent so that I could watch (mostly streaming with a password) the nominees for their Spirit Awards and this is the first one I picked.
The cinematography by Ryûto Kondô is striking. I also commented that there was lots of food in
Still Walking and in this one I noticed they're often eating.
The soundtrack by Haruomi Hosono is available on
Apple Music and
spotify and, as usual, I'm listening as I type.
This movie is playing limited engagements around the country and will be
released digitally in February.
Rotten Tomatoes' critics, at 99%, and its audiences, at 90, agree this is a must.
No comments:
Post a Comment