万引き家族
Country of Origin: Japan
Primary Audio Language: Japanese
Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Film Length: 2h 1m
Synopsis: On the margins of Tokyo, a dysfunctional band of outsiders are united by fierce loyalty and a penchant for petty theft. When the young son is arrested, secrets are exposed that upend their tenuous, below-the-radar existence.
Star Rating: ★★★★★
Review: Winner of the Palme d’Or Award at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, this beautifully complex and subtly layered film is a satisfyingly devastating drama about what truly makes a family, and how a, somewhat unorthodox, one can survive within the structure of a society at risk of losing its social safety net through a widening class divide. This film absolutely transcends borders and will resonate deeply with almost any American viewer.
The storytelling here is brutally honest about the struggles of a tightknit, but dysfunctional, family’s struggle for survival, through almost any means, cleverly highlighted by the dark humor of the characters, and refreshingly free of judgement of their methods, even when they eventually lead to moral repercussions. Three generations of the Shibata family live in the home of their matriarch, supplementing her pension with odd jobs and committing petty theft.
One winter night, on his way home from lifting some supplies from the local grocery store, the father, Osamu, finds a five-year-old girl, Yuri, on the street. After bringing Yuri home to feed her, with original intent to return her to her family after, it soon becomes apparent that she’s been abused, so the family decides to take her in, despite their home already being overcrowded.
Similar to the way Osamu justified stealing from the grocery store to his son, Shota, in that it’s ok to steal if it’s not someone else’s property, and items in the store don’t belong to anybody yet, so it’s ok as long as the store doesn’t go bankrupt; Osamu and his wife, Nobuyo, justify keeping Yuri by saying it’s not kidnapping if you don’t ask for a ransom, this despite the TV broadcasts about a little girl having gone missing.
As the film explores such moral ambiguity, eventually events draw to an astonishing climax of secrets hidden within the family that tumble out one after another, piecing together, or rather collapsing, in an extraordinary surprise twist-reveal ending worthy of psychological suspense thriller that I won’t even hint at for risk of ruining the surprise... you have to watch for yourself.
Available On: Hulu
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